The Prince of Persia: The Trilogy of the Tale
by godosnipers
Summary: The Prince's tale told throughout his journey, the sands of time unleashed, the sands of time death and the sands of time rebirth. The trilogy among which the prince becomes king of time itself.
1. The sands unleashed

Hey guys i hope this story occupies you as i rebuilt my thoghts on my resident evil naruto crossover. as always read and review!

I do not take all the credit for this!!! truthfully i took a few things from another person's document (like words i couldn't get through the game before i had to take it back and everything and also a few things that happen that didn't quite show in the game. also there are a few moves never included i see so sorry bout that)

I did do this document though, so i thank the person i took the few little things from.

Anyone who's played this game can tell everything from another thing and also guess what? i'm including the last two games as well for a longer stories sake. HOPE YOU LIKE! ONWARDS!

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A dark-haired young man stands on the terrace of an imposing palace set amid the lush vegetation of a monsoon rainforest. In the twilight damp, birds flock and wheel overhead. The young man is dressed in dark blue tunic and headdress, and carries a sword on his back. He seems to be waiting.

Through gauze curtains behind him is a brightly lit room; he turns and goes in. Storm clouds gather. A lightning flash, a rumble of thunder and a heavy raindrop falls. In a candlelit bedchamber a young woman sleeps, a translucent net her only cover in the humid night. "Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction,"

The young man declares, "but I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you - they are wrong." The raindrop splashes to the ground and at that moment the girl wakes with a start, her dark eyes wide. In the dense forest the young man, sword in hand, runs purposefully through the rain. "Time is an ocean in a storm!"

His feet splash through mud, he is heedless of the downpour, brushing aside branches, intent on his goal. "You may wonder who I am and why I say this," he continued. "Sit down, and I will tell you a tale like none that you have ever heard." On a hillside horses stamp impatiently, their riders watching, waiting.

Soldiers are gathered before a mighty palace. "Know first that I am the son of Shahraman, a mighty king of Persia," the young man looked to his father mounted beside him. "On our way to Azad with a small company of men, we passed through India, where the promise of honor and glory tempted my father into a grievous error."

Inside the gates of the palace a soldier raises its drawbridge. He turns as a gaunt figure looms behind him, dagger drawn. This man swiftly stabs the shocked sentry; with a grin of satisfaction, watches him fall. The drawbridge mechanism spins free. From within the palace a flaming arrow arcs across the sky. "Now, my son!" The battle begins - soldiers charge, swords drawn, sweeping aside the first defenders as riders rush headlong for the open gates.

King Shahraman and the Prince head the charge as they ride to a mighty clash of arms. Shahraman is about to strike at a figure but the man raises his hands. "Your majesty, I trust you will remember your promise?" It is the Vizier who opened the palace gates, his tone obsequious as he gestures. "The Maharajah's treasure vaults lie within." At that the Prince spurs his horse. "See how he rides!" King Shahraman laughs with pleasure, "Like a warrior's son!"

The Prince clatters across the stone floor at a gallop, the palace walls collapsing around him. His horse is brought down; he is thrown through a crumbling archway, lands hard with a gasp and is knocked cold. He came to lying amongst rubble on the hard stone floor of a keep. The battle still raged beyond the walls. All around was the clash of steel, the shiver of arrows, shouting and screams of desperate men, the whinny of horses and crash of flaming missiles, pounding the Maharajah's palace.

"Do you think I felt regret as I gazed upon the destruction we had wrought," wondered the Prince, "or at least humility at the speed at which a world can be transformed from a good world into a hell? If you think so you are mistaken. From that moment I thought of one thing only - the honor and glory I would bring my father by fighting like a warrior in my first battle!" A party of his father's soldiers shared the courtyard with him, using a ram to batter a sturdy gate under orders of a captain, sweeping his scimitar as he urged every stroke.

The Prince ran toward them, and as he approached a great ball of fire streaked over the palace walls and blasted the group with their ram. Smoke cleared and the Prince looked in horror at the twisted, burning bodies. He realized there was nothing to be done, and also that there was no way through that gate. He headed up over the rubble to the ramparts. As he ran across the top another flaming ball blasted out the walkway in front, forcing him to jump across the gap.

Past more grisly corpses he leaped across broken boards and ran inside a section of covered rampart. A hasty barricade of furniture blocked his way. He cleared this easily with his sword, and here now was his first taste of combat. A turbaned sentry stood ready, swinging his spear in a threatening stance.

With sword in hand, the Prince charged in and began to slash. He was able to block or roll when his opponent tried to thrust with the spear, and it took only a few blows before the sentry was overwhelmed. The Prince sheathed his sword in satisfaction and climbed a nearby ladder to higher battlements.

He drew his sword again and ran towards two sentries there. Moving and slashing, he divided his attack between them. Each fell soon enough beneath the swiftness of his sword. The Prince took a moment then to savor his victory. He looked down in awe upon the clash of battle all around. On the ramparts and in the courtyard below he could see flames, and men engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle.

Fiery balls streaked through the air and showers of flaming arrows fizzed overhead. At his feet, a smoldering ball had become lodged in the solid stone of the ramparts. With grim determination, he headed inside where he splashed through a footbath. He took this opportunity to drink a little water, which seemed miraculously to recover his strength.

"Many men that day sought to win honor and glory on the battlefield, that their king might say to them, as Khosrau said to Rustam: 'You are the noblest of my warriors'. From the moment my sword tasted blood I knew this would not be my way. I would win my father's praise not by killing but by being the first to find the Maharajah's Treasure Vault and the wonders within." To that end, he smashed a wooden bench from his way and returned outside.

Arrows of fire rained down over the palace walls. Fireballs shook the sky. The battle raged on. Sentries paced ramparts below, awaiting any intruder. With the recklessness of youth and intent on glory, the Prince made his way down through the rubble of the shattered ramparts and rushed to join battle.

He moved swiftly from one to the next, knocking each back and pinning them down until one by one they too fell beneath his sword. He sheathed his now blooded blade and turned inside once again. As missiles pounded all around, he felt himself safer there. Through a twisting corridor he emerged, as another fireball whistled down and smashed away the wooden rampart in front. He continued his run but raised himself on the wall across the gap, and in this manner passed easily over it.

Dropping down lightly on the other side, he gathered enough energy in a few steps to repeat the extraordinary feat over the next gap. He climbed a ladder to higher ramparts. Beneath shaded canopies on ivy-covered walls, racks of spears waited their purpose. However, the Maharajah's troops were nowhere to be seen. The Prince moved inside once more. Refreshing himself at another shallow pool he emerged to find the absent soldiers.

A short distance ahead, a fireball whistled down and blasted a hole clean through the thick stone walls of the palace. A way inside perhaps - but he had first to clear a path to it. Despite their ferocious demeanor, the palace sentries proved not to have such skill as he. The Prince whirled expertly among them and finished all without taking any wound, yet knew there was always the pool of water just behind were he not so expert yet.

With the way clear he scaled the palace walls. Reaching up, he was able to grab hold of a ledge and pull up onto it to move sideways towards a corner. Wherever necessary he dropped beneath obstructions to grab the ledge and shimmy along to clamber up once again.

As he edged confidently along the ledge, another fireball whistled down and pounded the wall below, shaking his hold but failing to dislodge him. Undaunted, the Prince edged around the corner and made his way along a frieze of decoration, studded with the faces of exotic deities, in their sculpted serenity unseeing of the destruction all around.

Presently he came to the hole in the wall, where he dropped swiftly to grab on and haul up. He was inside the Maharajah's Palace at last. Here was the smoldering ball that had smashed its way through, and the Prince jumped down to the rubble beside it. Armed guards paced the room, and with his sudden entrance stood ready to challenge him.

He dealt properly with them; his sword the only visa for passage beyond. This small room had heavy wooden doors and a barred gate, but plainly no way through either. The Prince looked up to a balcony high along one side. There appeared to be an exit off it. He refreshed himself at a basin underneath, and noticed one pillar more slender than the rest.

He tested his athletic abilities in scaling it, thus gaining the height he needed to leap from tne pillar to the next across the room, and off the last to the balcony close beside. He found a dank stone passage, condensation dripping to its mould-covered floor. Thin shafts of light broke through from above, and dusty cobwebs blew among the rusted chains hanging from green-tinged walls; large areas of these were inscribed in a language he could not understand.

The Prince made his way through a pair of tattered drapes. His eye was drawn immediately to a weapon glowing brightly in an alcove opposite the balcony on which he stood. "And there it lay, just out of reach," he observed: "the Dagger of Time. There was a treasure I could carry with pride, as a trophy of our victory! If I could only get there..." He overlooked a room of carved pillars and ornate arches.

Statues of deities in alcoves to the sides; water flowed into pools at each corner. A carpet had been laid over the flagstones, leading to a raised platform under a stone canopy at one end. Glowing irresistibly within, a strange device. The Prince jumped down and stepped up to examine it.

It was a sculpted glass tube in a decorative metal frame, taller even than he. A low hum emanated from it, becoming louder as he approached. "The Hourglass drew me; fascinated me. But to move it would take a dozen of my father's soldiers," he conceded. "I wanted a prize I could fit into one hand." Massive embossed wooden doors sealed the exit, leaving the Prince no alternative to using a column to ascend back to the balcony where he had entered.

He saw now that he could nimbly run along the wall to another platform, and from their jump on top of the roof of the Hourglass canopy. Here, inside a recess too small for him to reach through, could be seen the Dagger of Time, tantalizingly close. He would have to work his way around the other side.

By a series of platforms, the agile Prince ran and jumped his way to another dank passage. Here, with a purposeful 'Thunk!' mechanical traps sprang into operation: spiked poles, spinning with lacerating intent, sliding back and forth along grooves in the floor over which he must pass. Taking up his courage, the Prince judged the moment to dive through and threaded his way past, dodging each blade to run to safety further along.

Dropping down here for a drink to restore such strength as he had lost, the Prince noticed upon the walls strange colorful murals and dense writing in the same impenetrable script he'd seen earlier. Doubtless these words told the story of the wall paintings, which were otherwise difficult for him to interpret.

The first appeared to show a Blue god of some kind and his pregnant wife (the child appeared to be Red), she a winged goddess. In the next picture a Red god came and slew the Blue god, snatching the child from its mother and devouring it. The Blue god returned and wrought vengeance, tearing from the belly of the Red god the Sands of Time into an Hourglass. This seemed somehow to be held as the symbol of the four-armed Blue goddess thus worshipped by the people.

In one hand she held the head of the Blue god, in another a sword - or was it the Dagger of Time? Perhaps he would resolve the story in due course thought the Prince as he made his way around narrow ledges above the mysterious wall paintings. Though he unwittingly activated more spinning spiked poles here - grinding sparks in their relentless course back and forth across his path - he had scant difficulty working his way once more to the open air.

He was atop a ledge, high above the ground in what appeared to be a partly ruined temple. He worked his way methodically along crumbling ledges to a place where he could jump back to grab a thin column, still high above the ground. Through a series of leaps he was able to grab each tall column in a row to move to the centre of the room, where he ended on one that had its base sufficiently near to the ground to allow him to dismount safely.

So this was the Maharajah's Treasure Vault. Two huge flaming bowls lit the area, a basin of water near each at the top of a wide flight of stone steps. Broken steps lead away at the front. On decorative rugs lay scattered ornaments and wooden chests; alas, all empty. Towering above him was an immense likeness of a figure, carved from the very rock.

Its visage serene, one hand in offering, palm raised. Glowing irresistibly in a shaft of light atop the head the Prince knew his prize waited. Scrambling up to the lower hand of the statue, he ran up and jumped backwards to the second. From here he made his way up and across the shoulder, and had then to execute an arduous athletic maneuver where by a rhythmic series of jumps he ascended a narrow chimney formed by the head of the deity and the wall of the niche in which it was set.

He arrived at last on top of the statue, and claimed his reward. The Dagger rested on a metallic mount in a shaft of light from high above. As the Prince picked up the trophy, dust and rubble began to fall. He inspected the Dagger closely. It glowed. "Sand..?" He tapped lightly on a raised button in the Dagger's handle.

At that moment, masonry crumbled from the ceiling above. With a gasp of shock, the Prince looked up to see certain death crashing down upon him! His perspective became distorted, his vision blurred. Time itself seemed to stand still as the boulders slowed, were suspended above him, then reversed their course in a flash of white light.

Again his finger was on the button and now, stepping back, time was allowed to flow once more and the masonry crashed down as before, yet this time safely beyond his footing. Though he could not fully comprehend it, the Prince had seen the Dagger's power. "Hah!" he exclaimed, as he sheathed it in triumph.

Loose masonry and dust cascaded about him. "I had what I came for," he declared. "It was time to get out - now!" As the building shook and crumbled, the Prince took flight through an open doorway. Though stone tiles crumbled before him revealing savage spike pits below, a few agile wall runs and a jump over a gap brought him safely to solid ground.

Here were more spinning spiky poles, nimbly dodged - the last phalanx of five by means of an alcove just off their deadly course. He dropped down to return to the first passage of sliding spiked poles, as easily dodged as before. The palace rumbled and shook, dust crumbling from the ceiling as he tumbled through an open doorway.

The Prince leaped from a balcony to the floor, rolling in one move to the feet of his father. Shahraman turned to his son. "Oh!" as he showed his delight. The Prince was back in the room where he had seen the Hourglass. A dozen of his father's men were indeed moving it.

The Prince presented the Dagger of Time. "Father, I have brought us honor and glory." The Vizier stepped forward, coughing as he spoke. "Your Majesty," he rasped, "You promised me my choice of the Maharajah's treasures..." His eyes fell on the Prince's trophy. "That dagger!" "Surely you won't deny the lad a souvenir of his first battle?" replied the king. "You may have your choice of all the Maharajah's other treasures." The Vizier turned eagerly to the Hourglass.

"...Except that Hourglass," continued Shahraman. The thwarted Vizier turned away in veiled anger, stamping his curiously decorated Staff and now coughing blood. "...That will make a fine gift for the Sultan of Azad when we pass through his city," decided the king.

He warmed to his theme, the Vizier continuing to cough furiously. "...And some exotic animals for his menagerie. And a dozen slave girls. Yes," now thinking aloud, "that should be enough." King Shahraman turned to his soldiers. "I want no animals or maidens harmed until I have chosen." From behind a pillar a dark-haired girl in a bright red sari looked down, fingering a pendant about her neck and listening to her enemies' words.

"Let it be known," Shahraman announced expansively, raising his arms in a magnanimous gesture, "King Shahraman is merciful in victory!" Suddenly the girl turned, and struggled in vain as a burly soldier grabbed her. With the spoils of their victory in tow, the Persian army crossed burning desert sands whipped by stinging wind.

The foot soldiers led on, trailed by cartloads of animals, of plunder and of maidens captured as slaves, including the dark beauty in the red sari, shackled under the blazing sun. She gazed impassively at the Prince as he rode to join his father, the Vizier close by. "Trust not a man who has betrayed his master, nor take him into your own service, lest he betrays you too," was the Prince's warning thoughts.

"I learned the truth of this, to my sorrow, the day that we arrived in Azad as the Sultan's honored guests." "My friend!" announced Shahraman. They were in the magnificent Reception Halls of the Sultan's Palace. Maidens prepared restoratives, as soldiers of both armies attended the ceremony. "My friend," returned the Sultan.

"Your visit brings joy and honor to my poor and humble dwelling. If only you had given me time to prepare a proper welcome." They hugged expressively as well as they were able allowing for the contrasting physique of the portly Sultan and the warrior Shahraman. "The glories of Azad are famed throughout the world," declared the king. They walked forward together. "...And the best is yet to come," he continued.

The Sultan looked hopefully at the maidens, then apprehensively at the caged animals. "I give you -- " Shahraman turned dramatically to the Hourglass as it was unveiled. "The Sands of Time!" A silken cover slid to floor and the Hourglass was revealed.

The dark girl looked on with disquiet. "May the friendship between our kingdoms endure as long as Time itself," declared Shahraman. The Sultan put a hand to the glass and stared wide-eyed at the Sands within. "The sand -- " he marveled, "why does it glow?" "I can tell you." The Vizier stepped forward. "Inside the hourglass is a marvel that no living man has seen," the sycophant's words flowed like treacle.

"Alas, only the Dagger can unlock the Sands of Time, and it belongs to a greater one than I -- a young prince, dearer to his father than all the wealth of India." The Vizier turned solicitously to the Prince. "Perhaps he will oblige?" The girl watched in horror as the young Prince looked around at the faces waiting expectantly.

He approached the Hourglass. "No," she cried. The Prince unsheathed the Dagger. The girl broke free from her guards. "No! Stop!" she insisted. Too late. The Prince slid the Dagger into a slot in the glass, evidently made for the purpose. Perspective became distorted as the Hourglass pulsed. Guards blocked the girl. "NOOO!" her cry rang through the Hall.

Black clouds formed in the skies above the Palace of Azad. A shaft of light struck down, a thunderous shockwave hit, and the Sands were unleashed from the Hourglass, tumbling from its now open base. The walls of the palace trembled and shook. The assembled company stepped away from the fearful device. "Is it meant to do this?" asked the Sultan.

At that moment the Vizier stepped forward. He raised his Staff and loudly intoned an incantation in an unknown tongue. The Sands whirled about the room, scattering all to terror and confusion. King Shahraman tried to fight off the Sand as it swirled about him. "Father!" gasped the Prince.

Soldiers were gripped in the lash of the storm and horribly transformed into demon ogres as the Sands raged through their bodies, stripping their very sinews. Screams rent the air, guards and captives alike attempting to flee. Amid the noise and confusion, the walls of the palace began to collapse.

The Vizier turned to the Prince, alone amid the chaos with his Dagger in hand, and advanced upon him ominously, bony fingers outstretched. "Give me the Dagger!" he hissed. The Prince shook his head, "No." He backed away, masonry crumbling around. The thick choking Sand seemed not to affect him as it did the others.

The Dagger was the key. "You have unleashed the Sands of Time!" the Vizier warned, "I can undo what you have done." He snarled a command, "Give it to me!" "No!" Through collapsed rubble the Prince turned and ran. He dived through a doorway as its columns tumbled to the ground, holding back the Vizier and all the demons within.

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Guess who XD lol yep it's ending time lol. and not much a cliffy as you might think. anyways heres the credits.

Ok guys have fun waiting for the next chapy of the re4 story and this one.

Next chappy, the chasing of a girl


	2. Chasing a girl

Yo all, how's it hanging? hope it's good XD anyways heres the second chapter to the trilogy as you can see.

OK guys i'm following the game here but if you want any changes, like possible acrobatics and moves the prince could do? i'll need alot of ideas if you don;t mind me askin.

Anyways see you all next chappy!

ONWARDS!!

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Soldiers possessed by the Sands stalked the Reception Hall beyond, sending fleeing before them a few terrified survivors, not as yet scoured by the Sand. The girl in the red sari was among them. These few fled through a barred door, which collapsed shut behind them. The girl paused as the others ran on, she looking back to the enraged pursuers behind the bars of the door, snarling and growling at their prey, now beyond reach.

These savage Sand Creatures turned instead to the only human occupant of the room. The Prince drew his sword. He dealt a hard blow to one of the possessed soldiers, knocking him to the floor. An urgent voice came from the doorway. "Prince!" called the girl. "Use the dagger!" He had his hands full fighting off another. He managed to knock this one down too, only to see the first one revive in a swirl of glowing Sand and return to face him once more.

It seemed that the demonic creatures drew their life force not from warm blood as any living thing, but cold Sand, which now coursed through their veins and glowed from their bodies. Though he subdued them with his sword, they did not die. "Strike with the dagger," the girl urged. "Take his Sand!" The Prince stepped in close to the next stricken creature, and plunged the Dagger into it, right there on the ground. The vile creation shook and screamed, writhing as the Dagger sucked life from its mutated body.

The Prince stood in awe as the creature disappeared in a fading swirl of dust. There was not time to consider this miracle as another creature approached and slashed wildly. He turned and dealt several hard blows until that one fell too. "Now," the girl cried out through the bars, "finish him!" "Each time I struck them down, they soon rose to fight again," pondered the Prince.

"I soon realized that only by taking into my own dagger the Sands that possessed them could I liberate them from their monstrous living death." With the Dagger's power at his command, the Prince moved about the open space of the Reception Hall, singling out the nearest foe for attention but turning quickly to hold off another if it came close.

He found that by dealing out blows in different directions he could hold off two or three at once. As soon as one went down, he dived in with the Dagger and knew that once its Sand was retrieved into the Dagger of Time it would not come again. As the fight wore on, the Prince moved towards the top of the room where there was a shallow pool of water. He snatched a drink in a lull in the fighting.

As they came again, he felt his skill improved. There must have been a dozen in all, the turbaned Hatchet Men more plentiful yet easier to deal with than the Red Guards, but non of them as agile or determined as he. Eventually they were gone and the Prince sheathed his sword in relief.

At the fight's end, a cloud of Sand formed in the middle of the room, extending upwards in a shimmering vortex, glowing golden yellow with a brilliant white core. From behind the barred door, the girl stared in wonder. The Prince squinted at her - something shone about her neck. At that moment an aftershock hit the palace and part of the doorway where the girl stood collapsed. She gasped and fled.

For reasons that he would not have been able to explain, the Prince found himself drawn towards the cloud. Slowly he stepped into its light. The cloud gripped him; he gasped, his back arched as his paralyzed body was drawn above the ground, then became bent double, the Prince clutching his head as a Vision unfolded. In flashes he saw himself swinging from poles and running along walls, dropping and climbing as strange whispering voices and half-human cries filled his senses.

He came awake curled up on the floor, the Vision Cloud still glowing nearby. He appeared unharmed. "You think me mad, I can see it by the look in your eyes. You think my story is impossible. Perhaps I am mad - who would not be driven mad by horror such as I have lived? But I assure you, every word is true." Where he had seen the girl flee, the doorpost had now crumbled away.

He slipped through the gap, and as he ran up a flight of steps caught sight of the girl again as she fled from his approach. "Wait!" he called. "Stop - I won't hurt you." She ran down the corridor ahead, unheeding. Masonry crumbled from the ceiling and blocked his path to her. Dust settled. She was gone.

The Prince turned inside a doorway behind a lush velvet drape. He was on a broken balcony, looking down on a bedchamber, richly decorated but utterly ruined. He made his way down the broken staircase before him, dust falling beneath his footsteps on the wall.

"The guest rooms where my father, all our entourage, and I should have passed the night lay cold and silent. The Sands of Time had swept through, stealing life and warmth from everything it touched. And I, who unleashed the cataclysm, had been spared. Were there others like me who yet clung to life, hiding in fear among the ruins? It did not seem so." He heard a strange hollow ringing and a shimmering light beneath the stairs he had passed over caught his eye.

As he approached he sensed that he must plunge his Dagger into the cloud of light, whereon it sucked the light - now seen to be Sand - into itself. These Sand Clouds were residual stores of the Sands unleashed by the Hourglass, which he could now use to his own purpose. He moved on with satisfaction. "Hello?" his voice echoed in the empty room. "Is anyone there?"

He was answered only by the wind moaning through the desolate chamber. In one corner beside some pillars the Prince found metal bars, which he felt able to use to swing upwards. He swooshed effortlessly through the air, one bar to the next, to grab a stone ledge at the far wall. With a sense of deja vu he recalled what he had seen just seen in that strange Vision.

The feeling grew stronger as he made his way carefully along the narrow ledge to a platform, where with a wall run and back jump he was able to use a metal pole to swing to another platform and exit that unhappy place. He paused here, aware of that same insistent ringing sound he heard from the Sand Cloud in the room below.

He looked all about him and on glancing upward noticed a white glow emanating from somewhere atop a stack of rubble. He scrambled up and there was another Cloud. He plunged his Dagger into this one too, somehow certain of the need to charge its powers. As the light of the Sand Cloud swirled and vanished into the handle of the Dagger, he resolved to keep aware of the possibility of finding more of these mysterious stores of energy as he made his way through the ruined palace.

He jumped down and ran on up the corridor. From her hiding place, the girl in the red sari ran ahead and again disappeared behind more falling masonry. "Come back!" he yelled, once more too late. "Had I really seen her," he wondered, "or had my senses given way under the burden of horrors too great to bear and conjured up a phantom? Either way I could not rest until I had found her again."

Turning to one side he noticed a series of horizontal flagpoles, which looked as if they would take his weight. He ran out to grab the first, then swung out confidently to the next, and then the third, which (obscured by hanging drapes) he had failed to notice was shorter than the last. His fingers clutched desperately but he was flung off towards the ground below.

By some instinct that he could not explain, he reached for his Dagger as he fell, and tapped the button on its handle. Sound and vision were distorted once more as he halted in mid-air, then miraculously sailed upwards and back to the pole, where he found himself hanging safely as he had moments earlier before he made what seemed his fatal blunder.

"The miracle I had experienced by accident in the Maharajah's treasure room, I now discovered that I could trigger at will," he marveled. "By pressing a switch on the Dagger's handle, I could turn back time!" Buoyed by this discovery, and with more care this time, he shuffled to one side to align with the other poles before swinging once more to land safely. Here was a fountain to steady his nerve - he knew by now that he could take water from whatever source he found.

Finding either end of the corridor in which he stood blocked by debris, the Prince headed into another bedchamber, similar to the last. Here too was a broken balcony, and he traced in his mind's eye a perilous route around the walls to the bottom. He noticed that there was movement on the floor below, and sensed that there would be no friendly welcome there.

Swinging expertly from a series of poles, the Prince landed on another broken balcony. He was able to run out and grab a bar beyond its edge, and judged he could drop down to other bars beneath. He heard once again the strange ringing sound that he now knew signified the near presence of a Sand Cloud, but he had other matters to attend, and made haste dropping down to the floor.

Here were the Sand Creatures he had seen from above. Inhabitants of the Palace of Azad, possessed now by the Sands which glowed from their eyes and from their bellies; uncomprehending, bent on destruction, defeated only by the power of the Dagger of Time. "I soon discovered that when I had collected enough Sand the Dagger gave me the power to stop time - not for me, but for the enemy I struck."

The Prince was able to turn the creatures to stone, allowing time to fend off other attackers or finish them then by cleaving in two. Should he leave the frozen enemy a few moments, drifting helplessly to the ground, he might still leap to the fallen body and retrieve its Sand. This was the Power of Restraint. He practiced facing the creatures and leaping towards them, jumping over and leaving them bent in confusion. As he came to land he slashed across their helpless bodies, knocking them to the ground, where he could move in and retrieve their Sand.

This was his Vault Attack, and against it these types of Sand Creatures stood no chance. One by one they fell to his sword. With the room cleared, the Prince made exploration and noticed metal bars suspended between pillar and wall in one corner. He could grab the lower one by running up the wall opposite and springing back to hang off, turn and rebound off the wall again to catch the higher one.

Turning to face the wall once more, he could swing to a stone ledge, and from there climb up out of the bedchamber. In the corridor beyond was another Vision Cloud. The Prince was drawn to it, and experienced the same unsettling trance-like grip of the Vision. He saw himself again, leaping from poles and pillars, battling strange inhuman creatures.

"Whence came these visions that assaulted me thus like fever dreams? Each time I awoke feeling drained and beaten. And each time what I had seen came to pass, as if the Sands of Time were giving me a glimpse into my own future." He better understood the concept now, and resolved to return to a Vision Cloud whenever he was unsure of his path.

Clearing impediments from the doorway ahead, the Prince turned to an adjoining corridor. A bright light and faint ringing tone at one end alerted him to the presence of another Sand Cloud, and a glance at the rubble behind it told him that this was the very one he had heard earlier from the other side of the blocked wall.

He gratefully took up the Sand and headed down to the other end of the corridor. He used a flat wall to run up on and jump back to a bar, from which he turned and swung back to pull himself on top of a rocky ledge of broken masonry blocks. There appeared to be two ways to go on the other side: a deep drop down more blocks, or through a large hole in the wall beside him.

He chose this easier route. Climbing through the hole, the Prince fancied he heard the harmony of angelic music. He was in a lighted corridor hung with gossamer drapes, which fluttered gently as he slipped beneath. The way ahead became dark, yet he pressed on and in a few steps emerged in a stone passage suffused with blue light. "What the--?" he gasped in surprise as he hesitantly ran onto a suspended wooden footbridge.

It swayed under his feet but he felt no danger. "Hello?" he called hopefully, as he ran on. "Is anyone there?" There was no reply and the only movement was the upward drift of motes from the misty depths below, caught in brilliant blue light of illuminations along the undulating footbridge.

He saw now other rope bridges, all leading from the murky distance to a pillar of rock in the middle, on which stood a platform framed with columns of arches around a strange sparkling fountain. "I have a feeling that I'm not in Azad anymore," he remarked. The Prince stepped forward to examine the fountain. "Water?" As he took a draught, his body became wracked with a spasm of blue light, holding him in its grip.

His eyes appeared to be aglow, he heard urgent formless voices whispering unintelligibly, and in a sudden flash of light...he was back on the rocky ledge where he had discovered the hole. Yet now there was no trace of it. The Prince looked slowly behind him and all around. "What happened?" he wondered. In a flash his health visibly improved.

"That's strange," he declared. "I feel...wonderful!" Rejuvenated, he headed downwards. Here beyond a gap in the floor was another Sand Cloud, and after retrieval, the Prince dropped down into the gap. "Hello?" he called out, more in hope than expectation. A hand reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him through a gate, which clanged down behind him. The girl.

"Give me the dagger!" she said firmly. About her neck was a pendant. It shone with the same intense glow as the Dagger at the Prince's side. He thrust her back against a wall. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I am Farah, the daughter of the Maharajah from whom you stole it," she replied sharply. "This is your doing!"

He looked at her with anguished eyes. "I saw my father turned to sand!" She fired back, "And we will share his fate if you do not give me the Dagger to undo what you have done!" Unseen danger approached. "Your traitorous Vizier used the same words!" the Prince hissed. "From now on I trust no-one but myself." At that moment they heard the crackle of wings as they were menaced by fluttering Scarabs - giant horned beetles very obviously possessed by the Sands of Time.

"Run!" Shouted the Prince, knocking the first attacker on its shell. Another pinged off his blade. He thrust Farah towards a small crack at the bottom of the wall. "Go back to the Reception Hall," he commanded, "wait for me there. Go!" Alone with space to maneuver, the Prince whirled about, slashing and kicking back each Scarab before it could dart in with its pointed horns.

As he struck, each one evaporated into a cloud of fading dust, and with the fury of his attack they were soon gone. He refreshed himself from a small pool at the end of the corridor and reflected on his encounter with the girl. "Now I remembered her. Since we left India she had been there. In the desert I had felt her dark eyes upon me. Now, here she was again; she and I the only two survivors."

He remembered the one who had tricked him. "Did I say two? Excuse me - we were three." The other end of the corridor branched through doorways left and right. At a glance he saw that the floor through the right side had crumbled away, so the Prince headed left. Traces of Sand swirled and eddied about his feet as he ran up a twisting corridor.

Around a last corner a Sand Cloud had formed. Here also was a door, but there was no way through, so the Prince turned back to go into the doorway at the right. This overlooked a bedchamber, much larger than the previous ones, which he guessed to belong to the Sultan himself. That unfortunate man would not sleep here again. All around were broken balconies, columns and arches.

The Prince's eye was drawn to a heavy piece of furniture against a wall down on the floor below. He sensed that there his path lay. He jumped the gap in front of him and planned to work his way around by going outside onto a terrace. Here he caught a chilling spectacle: enormous black birds winged through the air, carrying between them a substantial burden.

"The Hourglass!" the Prince realized. "What--?" The demon birds carried it off into the highest tower of the palace somewhere above. "I did not understand the meaning of what I had just seen, but I knew with a certainty I could not explain that those winged creatures had a master. The man who had tricked me into opening the Hourglass now had his prize, and for some unknown purpose coveted the Dagger as well; would stop at nothing to possess it. Well, I would give him what he sought - I would plunge it into his foul and treacherous heart!" The palace still shook with the effects of the devastation wrought upon it, and as the Prince ran forward a section of the terrace gave way.

He skillfully ran along the wall to safety on the other side. From here he re-entered the Sultan's bedchamber. He could see the white glow of a Sand Cloud on the balcony in the corner opposite, and others on the tiers below. He thought he saw a way to work around the room. The balcony had crumbled away at this place also, but ahead was a column, which he used to leap to another broken one beside it.

With a change in direction, he leapt from one broken column to another across the room, before being able to turn again at a column in the middle to jump off and drop down the wall onto a ledge. Here, the Prince took the bold decision to run out on the wall ahead and jump just as he hit the shadow of a slender column, at which action he sprang out from the wall to grab onto it. Sliding quickly down, the Prince saw off a couple of Scarabs to claim a Sand Cloud into his Dagger.

Another bold run out on a wall here and a leap at a similar point had the Prince clutching another stone column, from which he worked his way across other broken columns to yet another part of the balcony. Climbing up blocks in the corner brought him to a higher balcony, reached by swinging across two bars. He turned on this and jumped over to where another insistently ringing Sand Cloud had formed.

Using a broken column beside it, the Prince jumped via two more hanging fragments of column to a remnant of balcony. He was temporarily stuck in his progress, until he observed cracks in the wall just alongside. Dropping down and holding on to the edge of the balcony allowed him to shimmy round to that wall and drop again, shuffling across to drop and hold a lower crack before dropping to land safely on a wider area of shattered balcony below.

Safe that is but for the presence of rattling Scarabs, nevertheless easily despatched. He made use of pendant light poles to swing across to an opposite balcony, where he dealt with yet more scuttling Scarabs before considering his next move. There seemed nothing for it but to hang off this last balcony and leap back to a tall column beside, by means of which he descended to the floor.

In moments Sand Creatures materialized, and the mindless assassins, wanting only to cause harm, stalked him around the room. Well, he would give it to them back in kind, and more besides. He employed his deadly Vault Attack and when he had enough Sand, used the Dagger to unleash the Power of Restraint.

This turned each victim to as much as a statue of stone, unable to move until the Prince leapt in with his blade to cleave them asunder. "It was indeed the 'Dagger of Time'," mused the Prince. "I began to realize why the Vizier wanted it so badly." On collecting a Sand Cloud in one corner, the Prince's next thought was to examine the piece of furniture against the wall that he had noticed from above. He put his shoulder to it and heaved. It slid away, revealing a secret passage.

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ok MEEEEGA cliffy there, sorry guys. hope you enjoyed it, also try to give me as many ideas as possible ok? and tell me if it needs more detail or something. TELL ME!!!!

see ya next time!

READ AND REVIEW!


	3. The palace's defense's, failure

YO!!!! lol XD heres the next chappy in the trilogy. trust me we're only about 15 through the game in which this part of the story is based on and only 1 through the WHOLE trilogy.

Guys heres the plan, we all gotta keep our heads in the game here and you all have to help me OUT! This story will be long and intresting but there isn't much to do if i can;t do shit with the stories i'm currently writing. i have chapter 1 for my next two stories and the next chapter of my current other story re4 cross plague of ninja's half way to just starting it due to thoughts on the story and how i will plan the next move in the story and the game.

ANYWAYS! HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!!!!!!

ONWARDS!!!

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The stairs here were broken, but he nimbly ran along a wall to back-jump to safety at the bottom. He was grateful for the easy retrieval of a Sand Cloud, and now turned his attention to a closed door. This bore a prominent white symbol - it seemed almost to be illuminated - which matched another on the floor just beside.

This was evidently a pressure pad, which activated a hidden switch, since the door slid upwards the moment he trod on it. Easier than carrying keys at least. He headed eagerly through. Collapsing masonry blocked his way. A spot of exercise along one wall allowed him to jump off to a broken balcony opposite.

Here was another door displaying the same white symbol, and here too the requisite floor switch close beside. Yet even as the Prince activated it, this door slid shut before he could get through. He could stand on the switch to open the door, but the moment he stepped off it closed firmly.

Try as he may, he was never quick enough to get through. Presumably this door required two people to operate it, one doing the standing on the switch and the other doing the walking through the door. The Prince was conspicuously alone. He stood for a moment with only the sound of dripping water to jar his concentration.

There was some kind of crate on the balcony, marked with the symbol of the Palace of Azad. It looked pretty heavy. An idea formed in his mind... It was so crazy it just might work! He pushed the crate over the floor switch and the door shot open, and stayed open as he strolled through. He surprised himself sometimes.

He was in a large room displaying curious circular symbols, part of the design of some sort of machinery. At its centre was a large round platform raised on stone pillars, this bearing the same symbol as on all the switches he had seen so far. Brilliant white light glowed somewhere beneath it.

There was a small jetty protruding from his balcony, but the gap to the platform was too great for the Prince to jump. The probable exit door marked with an orange symbol was on the other side of the central platform, so he knew he must get across to it somehow. On a wall near his door was another prominent white symbol, and a different kind of mechanism next to it to be activated. This seemed to be a pull switch.

On full extension of this switch, the small jetty pointing towards the central platform rapidly extended outwards to form a bridge to it - but then just as rapidly began to retract! The Prince judged that he could make the gap if he ran quickly enough, and activated the pull switch again.

He ran hard against the moving bridge and leaped at the end, to grab and pull up safely. "Oh, thank god!" came a rough voice, "I was afraid you were one of 'them'. Can you help me activate the Azad defense system?" It was a palace guard.

Locked alone in this room, he had escaped the ravages of the Sands as they swept through the Palace of Azad. Yet he was aware of the danger. "It'll take both of us to do it," he continued. "I'll reset the axles for you. The man who's normally in charge of this got -- " Machinery clanked into life.

The platform began to lower. "Never mind," the guard broke off. "Ride the platform down to the bottom, then use those two cranks to bring it back up." The axles were tubes of iridescent white light. Those that had previously been slotted into the platform were disengaged one at a time as the platform clanked around to each recess in the wall.

"D'you see those four axles?" explained the guard. "You'll need to pick them up one by one until you've got all four. Then bring them up to the top together." The platform sank to the bottom and stopped. "Make sure you pick them up in the right order!" bellowed the guard.

The Prince saw that one of four circular symbols at the corners of his platform was illuminated. He ran over to look. As he stood on the symbol a glowing axle slid out from the wall and engaged in a slot in the platform. "That's it! You've got the first axle - now pick up the other three," yelled the guard. "Remember: pay attention to the grooves!" The Prince noticed a large diagram set into one wall.

This showed four moons in various phases: Crescent, Half, Full and Eclipsed. Below these were grooves, and in four places along these could be seen four smaller moons showing the same phases. He quickly grasped that this was a scale plan of the grooves on the wall; the smaller moon symbols showing the present position of the axles waiting collection into their corresponding slot in the platform.

He examined the two circular cranks. He heaved against first one then the other, and discovered that only one would turn, in only one direction. "That's it!" called the guard again. "One crank turns the platform, the other one raises and lowers it." Of course! The cranks wouldn't turn fully because the axle in the slot was restricting movement of the platform. He tried to picture the entire structure turning with each axle further limiting the direction in which it could travel along the grooves. This was going to take some hard thinking... He was still at the bottom, so the only way was up.

If that last crank revolved the platform, the other one must raise and lower it. (Which would explain the brass helix on top). He found it took a clockwise turn to set the platform clanking into motion, causing a sparking and grinding of stone. Once raised, the Prince heaved the second crank, at which another moon symbol lit up. He eagerly went over to stand on the matching symbol. "Careful!" yelled the guard from above. "Think ahead!" The man must have done this a thousand times - why couldn't he just tell which one to do next?

The Prince stepped on the symbol once more to disengage the axle, and returned to the cranks to try again. Looking carefully at the wall diagram, he reasoned that it would be best to go down and pick up the Eclipsed moon axle. What would the guard think of that? "That's two..." Success!

There was now only one way to go, and that was back up. Fingers crossed that his logic was correct. The Prince brought the platform up once, then rotated fully again. With both axles free to move upwards in vertical grooves, he brought the platform all the way up to the top horizontal groove. Now the Half moon symbol was illuminated and he ran over to it.

He must say he felt pretty pleased when the guard called down encouragement. "Just one more." A single rotation and a single lowering of the platform and there was the final symbol illuminated. The Prince ran to stand on the Crescent moon. "That's four!" the guard almost screamed with delight. "Now - bring them up to the top, and line them up with their gears." Perhaps a tad over-confident, or just because he hadn't fully got the hang of turning the cranks the right way, the Prince brought the platform up too far.

The guard was prepared to be a little more patient with him this time. "You've almost got it," he suggested. "Just line up the axles with their gears." The Prince duly tried again. When the symbols on the platform matched the larger ones in the recesses, he brought the platform clanking up. "That's it!" the guard cried, "I knew you could do it." The four axles engaged into large cogged discs set into cylindrical recesses in the walls of the room.

As each locked into place the symbol on the surface of the platform lit up. "Now, there's one last step," instructed the guard. "Do you see that platform?" The Prince couldn't, until he turned around. Ah, that platform, right. A flat stone bridge now extended from the other side to allow him to reach it. "Throw your lever," continued the guard, "and I'll throw mine." The symbol on the central platform glowed brilliant yellow.

The Prince couldn't guess how it was powered. "What manner of machine is this?" he asked. "I told you, it's the palace's defense system," snapped the guard. "Stop wasting time - throw your lever!" The Prince began to have reservations. Could he trust this man? "For the love of god, what are you waiting for?" cried the guard. "Those demons might come back at any moment." There seemed nothing else to be done.

The Prince scaled a short ladder, and at the end of the platform above found another symbol set into the floor. Clearly another switch, and for this one he needed to jump up to pull on a metal bar suspended from the ceiling like a trapeze. "Hah!" cried the guard, as power flowed. "We did it!" The bridge retracted from the central platform. An iris closed on the domed ceiling, focusing light on a prism and mirrors set below.

Four dazzling beams of white light shone down onto the moon symbols, which lit simultaneously. A resonant hum filled the chamber. The axles turned. "Serve those accursed demons right," crowed the guard. "Oh, by god they'll rue the day they ever dared attack the Palace of Azad!" The door with the orange symbol opened, and in a corridor beyond it scything poles clunked into operation.

No mortal could easily pass. The air was rent by a blood-curdling cry. The Prince swung down off his lever to descend the ladder to the doorway below, and saw the guard on the platform opposite, now transformed into one of those very accursed demons he was expecting.

Without such as the power of the Dagger to protect him, the poor soul had become possessed by the Sands of Time, against which no mechanical trap could defend. A second possessed guard waited to greet the Prince down below. Combat was brief. The Prince used his Vault Attack, which left the guards clumsily bent double as he slashed them from behind. The Sultan's Red Guards were clearly inexperienced soldiers.

At the top of the stone stairs he heard the scything of the spinning spiky poles, grinding relentlessly along grooves in the floor, ready to slice any person foolish enough to brush close. Vicious spike traps flanked each. "What have I done?" groaned the Prince. "Why did I listen to that madman?" He knew at a glance that he had not to tread on tiles with slits, or he'd be skewered in an instant.

He had to wait as each pole went spinning by, and then carefully nudge his way along its path to wait on a safe tile area before the pole returned. Having dodged the two spinning poles, the Prince noticed that the ground ahead was blocked by a row of spike trap tiles. He used his special run along the wall and scurried over as the trap beneath him spat out its steely surprise.

On the other side of the doorway was an illuminated symbol, much like those he had just seen, only yellow instead of white. The lever was of the pull variety. "The palace's defenses had a twisted logic of their own," he decided. "They could be circumvented by using the strategically placed switches which I soon learned to recognize. Yet it was hard to escape the feeling that I had made a terrible mistake, by setting in motion such a deadly system of traps which seemed in truth more likely to claim my life than that of an invader that was not flesh and blood."

All along the corridor ahead of him a series of mechanical traps had sprung into operation. A loud steady ticking was his clue that the lever had set off a timed response mechanism. He headed up a flight of steps at a run, and swiftly dodged through the spinning spiky poles at the top.

A short hop over a gap to a ledge on a wall and now came rasping saw blades passing along slots in the very direction he wanted to go. Timing it carefully, the Prince was able to leap backwards to a ledge on the opposite side only when the blade there had passed. He shuffled ahead of it and leapt back again as it returned.

Once around a corner he had to repeat the trick off more ledges, and at last found the gate through which he must pass, now descending slowly before him. A quick diving roll underneath and he found himself in a darkened outdoor area. It was a courtyard overlooked by a series of balconies. Before he could get his bearings a Red Guard confronted the Prince. This creature was soon joined by a gang of mutant Trolls, each armed - of all things - with a plank of wood with nails in it.

These slow-witted creatures were easily confounded by an overhead Vault Attack. As they pressed him inside the enclosed space by the door, he was able to use the walls to launch a devastating Rebound Attack, which knocked everybody flat for him to retrieve Sand at leisure.

This move seemed a little tricky at first, but the Prince knew practice made perfect. When he had cleared the area, the Prince investigated the courtyard. In one corner was a water fountain, and in an alcove diagonally opposite that a Sand Cloud, partly hidden behind broken masonry. He heard its ring well enough to guide him. In another corner out in the open was his next Vision Cloud.

The Prince began to look for a way to leave the courtyard. It seemed clear he would have to get up to the balconies. On a central dais was a partly ruined structure of pillars and arches, from which stuck out a metal bar. Although the Prince recalled something of that nature featured in the Vision, there seemed no way to reach it.

Searching the courtyard area once again, he noticed one of the recesses facing it had a lit torch inside, and instead of a window like the others, had what he now recognized as an illuminated switch. It looked like another pressure pad, activated by stepping on it, yet flush on the wall.

A run up and over set it off well enough. It triggered a stone block rising from the dais behind him. After a few moments it slid back down again, flush with the ground. Another run over the pad brought it back up, and this time the Prince wasted no time in running to it, scrambling on top and jumping for the bar now within reach overhead. The block slid back down, but the Prince had already swung forwards to land on top of the ruined arches.

A leap off this and a grab brought him up on the lowest balcony. The Prince was greeted by yet another vicious booby-trap device, this a rotating sword blade swishing in a circular motion directly across his path. Time to try a new move, he decided. Reasoning that there was little to lose, but his life, he dashed forward and rolled straight under the slashing blade: tumble-tumble-tumble without pause, emerging safely on the other side.

Not bad! After a running leap off a wall ahead a similar device confronted him, this time flanked by sliding spiky poles. Could he time a roll just right to do the same again? There was the alternative in a quick dash to the balcony wall, hanging off the side safely out of reach of the blade and shimmying along the balustrade to pull up and dive through again. He'd see how he felt.

An illuminated switch on the stone floor beyond indicated another suspended lever to swing on. This opened a gate, and a swing inside found a floor covered in hidden spike traps. The Prince used his wall run to leap to a hanging ladder safely out of reach of the traps, then with only the small inconvenience of swinging around it, climbed up through an opening to the balcony above.

On gathering a Sand Cloud across the next little jump, the Prince couldn't help noticing a tempting gap in the corner nearby. Another hidden spike trap would prevent him jumping straight up to it, but a handy block allowed for an upward wall run and a backwards leap.

He landed into a niche by the hole, pulled up and was thus able to drop through safely. He heard tranquil music he'd already heard elsewhere. "Strange," he said to himself. "I feel as if I've been here before." He weaved through gossamer drapes, his footsteps echoing in the darkness. He emerged on blue-lit wooden walkways. "I HAVE been here before." The Magic Fountain.

This time he ran eagerly to receive the restorative powers of its waters. After the shock of its effect wore off, he found himself outside once more. "I feel stronger than ever!" he declared. Looking back, he saw that the hole he had climbed through moments before no longer existed.

The Prince ran out over a gap in the stone platform, to grab and swing off a pair of pendant light poles. They swayed a little under his weight but did not break. He swung off and caught onto a ledge, where a monkey-shuffle through a corner allowed him to jump back to another stone platform.

Here was an inviting gap to run across, yet the sudden rasp of a buzzing saw blade brought him up short. Bigger than the horizontal wall blades he had encountered, this one rose and fell along a vertical slot likewise directly across his path. Watching its descent carefully, the Prince waited until the blade reached the very bottom of its travel and had begun to rise, before screwing up his courage to rush across beneath its metal teeth.

Something told him these could bite. He reached a broken section of balcony and pulled up carefully to a ledge, from which he swung via a pendant light pole, out and then back to a higher fragment of balcony. A solid wooden gate stood here, but with no switch and no way through.

He turned around and found yet more blades behind him, each to be avoided the same way as the first - he would start the run just on the blade's rise. Not to get too confident though; a nip is all it would take to send him plunging to the ground in agony. He came eventually to a large solid gate, bearing an orange switch symbol.

Beside this stood a fountain basin, but there was no switch to be seen. He continued by running under another saw blade to reach a last stone platform, and here was an illuminated orange pressure pad. This had all the makings of a timed switch. Sure enough, as he stepped on it, the gate opposite snapped open, but in all too short a time slid shut again.

With the spinning blade in his way back, the Prince would have to time the run just right. With a quick dash and a leap and a sprint for the door he tumbled under just as it slid down with an ominous finality. Now what? "Farah!" he called. "Can you hear me?" Evidently she could not.

Before him in this corridor was another timed lever to pull from the wall, which opened a door at the end of it. It also triggered traps all along the way. The first obstacles were spinning wall blades either side of a deep pit, too wide to jump. This time he decided to dash across over the top of the saw blade, and gave necessary pause so to do.

A running tumble took care of a rotating blade trap further along, although he did consider using a tap on the Dagger to use Power of Delay to slow time enough to allow him to pass safely through on the right moment. Beyond was another wall pressure-switch, and this time he ran up and leapt straight back off it to catch a platform that slid out from the wall close behind in response.

He pulled up onto a ledge just in time as the platform slid back under his feet. A few simple ledges and a last dash over two more spinning wall blades brought the Prince to a rapidly closing door, which he just managed to dive and roll under. He was back in the Reception Hall...

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Yes yes i know!! mild cliffy there, sorry but i understand that if i give a major cliffy you will hate me and if i were to do a TINY tiny cliffy you wouldn't look forward to much later on so a mild cliffy every now and again with a large one and a small one inbetween will make a good exciting story.

OK guys like i said any new moves you want me to try putting in for our hero the prince? if not then it's ok i'll try to think of others. Anyways hope you like and read more!!!

SEE YA NEXT TIME!

READ AND REVIEW!!!!


	4. The death of the king

Ok guys seriously i'm in trouble XD things are not as they seem anymore and i can't do most things with ease anymore... i'm a wreck.

Ok so here's the next update there you go and please be patient with me and my stories.. things aren't going to good for me right now.

ONWARDS!

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He looked out over a balcony, where Farah was desperately loosing off arrows to hold back a horde of advancing Sand Creatures. "FARAH!" the Prince yelled. She looked up in surprise, then rapidly increased her rate of fire. The Prince leaped off the balcony, sliding down the wall and tumbling across the floor to run to her side.

He waved her away from danger. "Farah," he urged, "get back!" The Sand Creatures growled like wild beasts as they turned their attention to the new arrival. At their head was a hulking brute with white beard and yellow eyes and teeth glowing from the infection of the Sand that gripped him.

Despite the hideous appearance of the monster, its uniform was unmistakable. "Father!" cried the Prince in disbelief. The only response an unfeeling attack. The Prince set aside his emotions and made the painful decision to defer combat with this possessed travesty of his father.

He would finish its minions first. He soon learned the difference between the Red and Blue Guards: whilst he could easily use his devastating Vault Attack on the Reds, if he tried it on the Blues they blocked him every time and put him on his backside. He found it easier to roll sideways and attack them from behind.

At times he was in danger of becoming surrounded, and then he was very glad to have practiced the Rebound Attack off a pillar or wall, at which it became his turn to send them flying like skittles. He worked back toward the fountain at the end of the room, drawing the enraged creatures away from Farah.

When he could, he scooped up a handful of water to keep up his strength. "Why did you put your sword away?" demanded the Princess. One job at a time. Using all his skill and energy, the Prince took the Guards out one by one, spreading his attacks to hold them off and then diving in as each fell.

Keeping an eye out for Farah and stepping swiftly in when she called for help. he kept the pressure on and eventually prevailed. When all the Guards had vanished at last, he was faced only by the abomination that had been his father. There was to be no reasoning with the creature, and he summoned all his resolve to put aside tender thoughts.

Avoiding its sudden lunges and constant sweeping slashes, the Prince moved in close and applied the Vaulting Attack, again and again. The creature gasped and stumbled at each blow, bent double trying to keep up with the agile Prince. Soon enough, and though he caught a few blows between, the Prince brought the Titan down.

Without remorse he lunged in with the Dagger and the creature was no more. With this last Sand Creature vanquished, a Sand vortex began to form in the centre of the room. Farah looked in astonishment. The Prince knelt, head bowed. She put a hand to his shoulder. "I'm sorry," said Farah. "Why?" he asked curtly, tending his wounds.

"I know what it is to lose a father," she replied. Turning to her, his eyes narrowed and the Prince stressed each word: "That was not my father." He jumped to his feet and ran headlong toward the Vision Cloud. "What are you doing?" cried the Princess. "Stop!" The anguished Prince dived into the glowing column of Sand, receiving there as before a glimpse of the near future. He saw Farah and himself, running along ramparts, battling foes together. He saw too the Hourglass, attended by Sand Creatures under sinister supervision of the Vizier.

The Prince awoke to see Farah reaching down for the Dagger of Time where it lay beside him! He jumped to his feet and snatched it up. "So," he growled, "this is the thanks I get for saving your life?" He advanced on her purposefully. She retreated backwards, trying to still his suspicion.

"You don't understand," she insisted. "I need that Dagger, to undo -- " "'To undo what I have done.'" Words he'd heard before. "Truly you must think I'm a fool!" "You are right to be cautious," she went on, "but fight as bravely as you may, you cannot defeat this enemy! The Sands will spread - they will consume..." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "...everything."

He looked unimpressed. "I have heard it said that you are kind as well as brave," she said sincerely. "Please believe me!" She looked into his eyes and pleaded, "Help me find the Hourglass." He spoke suddenly, "It is in the Sultan's treasure vault at the top of the Tower of Dawn." "How do you know that?" she asked.

"I just -- know," he replied. He collected himself. "Come with me then if you insist, but I warn you I move pretty fast. You'd better keep up." He turned for the window at the end of the room. Farah ran ahead and jumped lightly through a gap in a broken screen. The Prince followed.

They landed on a narrow walkway leading around the walls outside. The Prince paused, hands on knees. He needed a drink and greedily drank from a basin right under the window. Seeing Farah run ahead he cried out, "Wait!" then set off after her. She had hopped off the walkway and across the wooden roofs of bays set into the palace walls.

He ran to join her there. "And you were worried about me keeping up?" she chided. They were overlooking a small terrace garden with a few trees and a small covered structure, a moon-viewing belvedere set off the terrace. At the centre of this formal space was a scenic pond, its moonlit surface strewn with lotus plants.

Around it paced Sand Creatures. The Prince ran across and drew his sword. "I'll cover you," offered the Princess. "Please don't," he replied. "You're liable to hit me." He laid into the first of the mutant creatures: fat Trolls that stumbled blankly, trying to keep him in sight as he leaped around slashing each one.

These were soon joined by creatures in female form, perhaps the possessed bodies of maidens brought to Azad as offerings for the Sultan, or members of his own harem, but anyway utterly without feminine instincts. They held sharp blades in front of them as they stalked the Prince's every move, waiting to bound at him and slash with great speed and devastating force.

He treated them as the others, without mercy. When he had cleared the first group of Sand Creatures, there came a moment of calm where he could drink the sweet waters of the lotus pond. Too soon, the attackers came again. As he resumed the fight, Farah leapt nimbly from her vantage point and joined the Prince among the creatures on the terrace.

"Get out of here!" he cried urgently. "Seems to me you could use the help," she muttered. He wasn't so sure about that. The cheek! With a few savage blows he finished off the last of the Sand Creatures. Well," asked Farah. "Now what?" A Vision Cloud had formed nearby; he moved toward it. Farah begged him to stop. "Oh no," her voice trembled, "please, not again!" She did not yet understand, and nor did he fully, but he felt compelled to enter the Vision Cloud and see what it might foretell.

The Prince groaned, lying on the hard ground as he came out of the trance. "Are you all right?" asked Farah, anxiously. The Prince answered wearily. "How long was I out?" "Long enough," she admonished. "What if the Sand Creatures came back?" "They won't," he sighed. "Not here, anyway." Recovering his health with the fragrant waters of the pool, the Prince headed up a short flight of steps.

He heard the resonant ringing of a Sand Cloud close by. "Careful," warned Farah as he moved to it. She followed him up the steps as he plunged the Dagger into the cloud. "What are you -- ?" "Sand," he replied. "I'll take it where I can get it." They made their way around another walkway.

The Prince came to a barred wooden gate, a yellow symbol upon it. Farah looked through. "The switch to open it is on the other side," she said sadly. As they looked for a way around, the walkway ahead crumbled and fell. Now they were stuck. The Prince thought he might be able to make the gap.

As he ran for the next part of the walkway, it broke loose, sending him falling heavily onto the green copper roof of a turret just beneath. Now at a distance, the Princess called down with concern, "Are you all right?" "Stay there!" the Prince called back, "I'll try to find a way in." From the small roof he made his way to a matching one further along the outside wall. He looked down on moonlit clouds, stars twinkling above, night birds cawing nearby.

Through his mistake the Sands of Time had sullied this peaceful place, and he knew he must work hard to put matters to rights if only he could. It took a little more effort now, but the Prince struck out now for a series of banner poles, from which, by swinging one after the other, he fell safely on another small copper roof.

The Prince had pause for reflection on recent events. "She tried to steal my Dagger, after I saved her life! She would have left me there to die, but here I am risking my life for her again. And why? Good question!" While he pondered the answer the Prince made his way down by running over a short tiled roof section, and then to a roof terrace, dropping off the wall between two lit brands guarding a very solid gate.

He would not enter there. "Here I am!" came a distant voice. Well, he certainly hadn't forgotten her. At the centre of the terrace was a wooden capstan with a crank handle. Upon it was a symbol, which by now he recognized as the key to a door. While he hoped it was to the door by which Farah waited, he found on turning the handle one full revolution that it opened a door below him. He took out his sword to clear two small kegs blocking his way to drop down.

He would need that sword for more important matters, as Sand Creatures began to assemble. He was on a bridge, broken in the middle. A Sand Cloud twinkled at the end of this side, but he had no need for it just yet. He'd check around first. The gate he had opened led into a small round chamber, thick pillars on the inside, ornate trellis screen around its outside wall. The trellis also closed off the exit.

With Red Guards, Trolls and Maidens now closing in around him, the Prince suddenly realized there was no water to be found. He took care then to keep each opponent on the back foot by spreading his moves between them, and in this way he escaped major damage. By now the Dagger of Time had drawn sufficient power to unleash special properties in combat.

By trial, the Prince found that he could not only freeze time for a single opponent, but for all, and in those few seconds he was able to dash from one to the next, vanquishing each in a single blow. However, this drained all power from the Dagger, so he was grateful for the Sand Cloud on the bridge outside to refill it. By now he felt more comfortable in his abilities against enemies such as these, and resolved to save this miracle of combat for stiffer opposition.

The next Vision told of many traps ahead. He would need Farah's help. Looking up, he saw bars suspended between the pillars of the room. He thought it possible to use them to make his way up inside. He mounted a block at the rear of the room and ran upwards to grab a ledge.

As he worked his way along this it crumbled, leaving him no alternative to a backwards jump to the first metal bar. Gathering momentum with each swing, the Prince took off across the room from bar to bar, higher with each, taking care to rebound off the wall at one end, continuing upwards to grab eventually onto a high walkway.

Here was a ladder up to a second walkway above, but the Prince's eye was caught by another open doorway to his left - with the slight inconvenience of a scything saw blade in his path to it. The Prince waited until the blade had reached the bottom of its travel and had begun to rise before scurrying out and passing safely underneath.

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OK guys i know i made a huge cliffy but no worries it'll get better soon. as for how things are going this story will take quite a while, but at least i have a story up and all being updated.

My re4 cross story is having major difficultuies due to reasons unknown even to me. I'll update it as soon as i can though.

SEE YA LATER!!!! READ AND REVIEW!!


	5. Zootastrify

Hey everyone it;s me!!! I would like to thank ferric for his ideas on the two bosses here. it was his ideas!

Green ninja keep it up with your story XD and hopefully thankfully you'll stay with this story to the end!!!

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Not actually a doorway, this now appeared to be simply a hole broken through the wall. The tingling sound of celestial music hinted at a familiar place beyond, and diaphanous drapes and ethereal blue light confirmed it. He ran forward along the wooden rope bridge, once again eager to receive the life-enhancing power of the waters of the fountain at the end.

As before he came out of his trance where he had entered the portal, with now not a trace that it had ever been there. A quick dash back past the scything blade allowed him to climb the ladder on the other side. Here was another door marked with a switch symbol, and it seemed to be of the yellow timed variety.

With a slightly sinking heart the Prince realized that the only way around the ledge to the switch on the opposite side was past yet more buzzing saw blades, in two sets of two. He screwed up his strength and waited for the first set to rise slightly before beginning his dash. Without pause he continued to the second - and on over the switch - and then it was a clear dash around to arrive at the now open door, where a diving roll found him inside before it closed.

With confidence, this was becoming easier! Now was heard a new and undeniably threatening sound of steel, clashing decisively at regular intervals. Whatever it was it couldn't be good. A barred gate by the entrance was marked with another timed switch symbol, but there was no such switch in evidence.

The Prince looked through the bars at the passage behind this gate and made out various traps and pits, which led him to the inclination that he would rather not open it. The only other option was a wall run over a spiked pit to a second gate away down the passage. About to check this, he heard a familiar voice. "I'm down here," called the Princess. He ran down some steps to find her waiting behind the closed gate at which they parted earlier. She seemed a little impatient. "There you are," she said finally. She needed to learn some manners.

He stood looking at her through the bars for a long moment. "Come on," she insisted. "Open the gate!" He relented and stepped on a nearby pressure pad. "Let's try not to get separated again, shall we?" she suggested. They ran up the steps together and Farah observed wistfully, "It's so quiet out there. It's terrible, but also...beautiful." The Prince didn't care to agree. "Maybe to you." They were at the second locked gate. "Look!" cried Farah, running ahead. She had found a crack beside it, and squeezed through to the other side.

The Prince was impressed. "You're a skinny little thing." With a short pant of effort, Farah hopped up and pulled a lever to let the Prince in. She skipped ahead, to a platform high above what looked to be a warehouse. The sound of chopping steel was now louder. "What is this place?" she wondered. "We'll need to find a way down to the bottom," he replied.

Ahead was a wooden ramp suspended from their platform, running tight against one wall. Looking across the warehouse the Prince saw other ramps arranged in tiers down to various platforms. All were out of reach. He ran down the ramp and noticed a wall switch, just at the right height for him to run out upon.

Leaping back at just that spot, he grabbed onto a hanging lever. Farah called over, "I can't do that." "Stay there," he ordered. Unseen machinery cranked into life and the platforms around the room began to swing into changed positions. Farah could now run down to a lever over a platform opposite. "I can reach this one," she offered.

The Prince dangled precariously above the source of the clashing steel - vicious rusted blades slashing out from the wall over the surface of the platform below, at short snapping intervals. He carefully timed his drop to land between clashes and ran safely up a ramp on the other side.

A sarcastic voice called from behind. "I'll just wait here then, shall I?" She should complain. On activating another timed pull-switch, the Prince saw a cascade of sliding spiky poles and traps in a corridor close by. Sizing it all up and taking his moment, he ran through, zigzagging first to a wall, then back to the centre and on - right/left/right/left, to dive through the closing gate beyond without pause. Phew!

Now he was back at the entrance - so that was where the switch to this door had been! He had rightly guessed those traps were no picnic. He ran again over the spike pit and rejoined Farah in the warehouse. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I heard strange noises..." The Prince answered briskly, "No permanent damage, thank you." "There's another lever in that corner," she suggested. "Do you think you can reach it?" Only one way to find out.

Another pair of snapping steely jaws, which the Prince avoided by jumping to the left edge of the wooden platform they guarded. He timed his dash as soon as the blades retracted, running along a wall to cling to the edge of the nearby ramp. Pulling up, he ran to activate the hanging lever over it. On Farah's side the ramps swung back into their original position. She could now run down to the lever on the next lowest flight. "I've got it," she called back. "Your turn now." He dropped off his lever and ran down the next ramp, dropping off the wall to hang from the lever in that corner.

As the ramps clanked back into position Farah ran down her side once again. "Over here!" she said, jumping up. "Now pull the lever." Another wall run allowed him to drop onto yet another lever, and once again came the sound of grinding machinery as the ramps swung back and clanged into place. "I can reach this one," said Farah, as she jumped up to a lever with another pant of effort. "Your turn, now." The Prince had an easy run down the last ramp on his side, and gratefully tugged down the last lever.

He saw Farah run across to a large central wooden platform. He dropped off the lever to go down his side and join her. There was no time to congratulate each other - Farah gasped at the sudden appearance of Sand Creatures, and drew her Bow. "Stay there!" called the Prince as he jumped down to tackle them.

Muscle-bound brutes hoisting heavy hammers, like circus strongmen, joined Red Guards. With so much space to move around, the fight was easier than it might have been. The Prince stayed close to the main door, where there were basins on either side to snatch a drink as needed.

He used Vaulting Attacks when he could, and was able to use the barrels scattered about to launch devastating Rebound Attacks as the creatures ganged up on him. Though there were perhaps a dozen in all, they came not more than three at a time and he was thus well able to cope.

Once the room was cleared, he collected the Sand Cloud on top of a stack of crates and considered the possibilities for opening what was obviously the exit gate. In front of it he could see not one but two white pressure plates on the floor. The symbol on the door however was orange. He soon discovered that each white floor switch triggered metal risers, one on top of the central platform behind Farah, where he noticed, high on the wall the requisite orange wall switch. The other riser gave means of access back up to it.

The plan simply had to be to use the risers to reach the orange switch; the problem was that the risers stayed risen for only as long as he remained on the switch! He had once more to look for something to substitute for body weight. The warehouse had no shortage of crates anyway.

Trial and error (and careful observation) revealed two candidates - one having to be pitched off the top of a stack against the back wall near the platform switch, the other, smaller than the rest of the crates, at the back of the room on the opposite side. Hefting these to cover each switch did the trick.

A quick hop up and he was ready to enter the Vision Cloud beside Farah. "Oh, no," she worried. "Please be careful." After the vision the prince came too. "I'm all right," the Prince assured her as he regained consciousness. "Stop doing that," she admonished. He made no comment and climbed up the second riser.

"Try that lever," suggested Farah. Good idea. The Prince ran over the switch. Of course, it would have to be on a timer... He jumped down to run as hard as he could for the rapidly closing gate.

Farah raced ahead and he dived through to join her just in time. They made their way along a corridor with a couple of spike pits, which they easily negotiated. Running ahead of the Princess, the Prince emerged into an eerie quiet. Cages and bars. "Where are we?" wondered the Princess.

The Prince was awed. "This was the Sultan's Zoo." A light glowed ahead, and as he went to investigate, four Sand Creatures barred his way. He was not prepared to take any nonsense from this crowd, and set them all in stone to finish at his leisure. (He thought it much better to protect Farah from the unwelcome attentions of a brutal hammer- wielding Strongman wandering over to attack her while he was otherwise engaged. In this way he finished them all before they even thought to approach her).

With the way clear, the Prince went over to the Vision Cloud. It seemed to be guarded by a statue in the likeness of a big cat, possibly a panther, its mighty paws raised rampant. The Prince stepped anyway into the stream of light. "Be careful," Farah said with concern, "last time you were out for more than a minute." Once again the vision insued, and he found his path. he awoke once more outside the glowing light. "Are you all right?" asked Farah once more. "Yes." He couldn't explain; she wouldn't understand.

He checked the area thoroughly, but there did not seem to be any source of water. Perhaps inside the gate? "Do you think you could climb that wall?" asked the Princess. The Prince looked up at the barred wall and the iron gate set into it. "It's too high." Yet the switch for the gate could be seen inside.

He would need another way over. A large tree overlooked this gate, with a convenient branch just about right for a swing across. He remembered something like that from a previous Vision. But how to get up the tree? "Wait here," he said. "I'll see if I can find a way over the wall." There wasn't much to find apart from a climbable rock, and right there on top was a slender palm tree. About as narrow as a stone pillar anyway... A nimble shimmy and a back flip brought the Prince to a higher ledge with another tree, this too thick to climb. He hopped down instead and took a good run and jump over to the branch he'd spotted earlier.

A swing and a hop off the wall and he was in at last. "You did it!" cried Farah excitedly as he stepped on a pressure plate to open the gate for her. As she joined him, Farah looked up. "Birds," she observed quietly. "I wonder how they survived the Sand?" The Prince spoke levelly, "I don't think they did survive." The Sands could infect any living thing and it was clear that there was something sinister about the monstrous black birds, which now circled towards them. Farah gasped and drew her Bow.

The Prince had to admit that he was not the best at everything, and a close fight with demonic vultures didn't appeal. He drew his sword and stood close to one side of Farah, ready to block as she took careful aim at each bird in turn. A single hit from an arrow brought each possessed creature down in a ball of feathers and flame, one after another.

As one tried to stab forward, the Prince took his opportunity to slash it to pieces on the ground. With these combined actions the birds posed little threat - the pair made a good team at last. The Prince ran down a slope to investigate this part of the zoo. Here was a cage with a locked gate and the corresponding switch clearly visible in an adjacent cage. Yet that second cage had no gate at all, locked or otherwise.

Nearby was a storage area of some kind, cut into the rock, where kegs and straw lay scattered about. There was also a movable crate. "Look, a crack," said Farah. She flattened herself on the ground and slithered in. The Prince returned to the cage with the lever, in time to see her squeeze out through another crack inside. "Here I am!" she called. "I'll pull the lever." This opened the cage with the locked gate. "There's another crack," called Farah from inside her cage. "I'll see where it goes." As she disappeared once more, the Prince entered the now open cage.

This was a lattice of ironwork and glass, several stories high. "The fabled menagerie of Azad, the Sultan's pride and joy. It had been one of the wonders of the world; as a child I had dreamed of it and longed to see it with my own eyes. Now it was a place of terror, an abandoned ruin laid waste by the Sands of Time." "Here I am!" Farah appeared through a crack in one wall. Birds need water and the Prince did too.

He was not too proud to drink from a trough on one side of the cage. Suddenly out of nowhere a blur hit the prince into the wall, HARD! farah ran to the prince's aid but was thrown back out of the cage. The gate closed suddenly and there, staring at the red clad bow girl was a spotted creature, with a sound cloud hovering just at it's ankles.

The prince got up and saw the creature, the King cheetah of the zoo. "Not good. FARAH!!" Farah was outside. The sand beast slowly walked around the bottom of the cage as the prince matched it's pattern. Suddenly the cheetah disappeared and the prince found himself flying into the back of the cage. He got up and ran for an exit of some sort.

Once again the prince found himself on the ground, and the cheetah roamed around him. The prince knew he had only one chance, and it was to defeat this monster. He got up and ran to the beast, he vaulted over it but it just ducked under the blade. The prince was hit by the cheetah's tail into the wall.

The prince got up just in time to be thrown into the gate to the outside, grunting in extreme pain. Farah hit the door to try to save him, But knew she needed to go into the cracks again. She just couldn't get in there!

The prince got up and saw the cheetah king growling as it waited patiently for him. He needed to find out it's weakness! He found the cheetah gone once more just for him to be thrown into the air and pinned to the ground. He counted the time in which the cheetah was in haste itself.

Five seconds of haste before returning to normal speed. He needed to count how long it stayed in normal speed. After getitng out of the paws of the monster he ran up the wall as high as he could and arched high. He instantly grabbed onto the swinging bar and swung once more to a middle bar high off the ground. The cheetah waited.

The prince made a plan. "This is a haste battle, and a slow battle, and must be won by the sand's. If i can figure out how long he stays in normal time i can find out how to hold him." He lept down but instantly found himself flipping back. Luckily his feet hit the wall and he jumped off, rolling on the ground as he tried hard to start the time.

The cheetah just stood glancing at the prince. The prince was waiting for it to speed up. When it finally did he saw the hit coming. He ducked but was swept off his feet and pinned. Five second in haste and ten in normal time. He hit the creature in the gut with the dagger, instantly stopping him in time. The prince just got out of the pin he was in when the cheetah returned to normal time.

Perfect!

The prince tried to slash the creature but his blade stopped, blocked by the very skin of the creature! He backflipped a few times and suddenly the creature jumped at him. It dind't help much when he was suddenly slow and frozen once more. The prince took the chance to clash the creature again, and finally succeded.

He thought quickly as he slashed away at the creature. "I can kill him if i use the sand's wisely, i have a ten second time limit once he's in slow to hit him! I wonder..." if the slow time wore off the prince gone into haste mode, just as the cheetah did, and the cheetah was slightly faster in that time then the prince, but the prince had better reflexes

The prince blocked the paw coming his way before spinning, hitting the creature broad side. He found he could hit the creature while in fast time and slow time. In normal he was invincible. The five seconds were up, and the prince struck the cheetah once more, stopping him.

In farah's eyes it was a battle she had never seen. No one, not even the prince, showed promise such as this in the stories about him. He had learned to utilize the sand's themselves into a battle of the sand's themselves. He was winning! THe prince was close..he was about to beat this creature.

The prince was about to deal the finishing blow when sudenly the cheetah roared, sending him flying into the wall. The cheetah dropped to the ground, glowing brightly. The prince ran to it and struck him, putting him in slow time easily as to gather the sands of the monster. Once the creature vanished into the handle of the dagger the battle.. was over.

The prince sighed as he sheathed his weapons. He suddenly found Farah outisde, where she was going to stay it seemed. 'Stay there, i'll find my way to you." Farah was obviously worried. "Be careful, i don't know what would happen if i..." The prince was already looking for a way up.

Set low off a pillar by the entrance, the Prince found a pole he could jump up and grab onto. Through a series of swings and jumps, he made his way carefully up the levels of the cage, running between the wooden platforms when he could and swinging from the many bird perches between. Feathers drifted lazily through the stifling air.

Always in the background, the cries of unknown creatures somewhere near but unthreatening and anyway out of sight. With effort, the Prince made it all the way to the top of the cage, to a last wooden roost, where the iron bars behind had been twisted away. Every creature had flown from this sinister place.

Just opposite was a rock ledge, where the Prince was able to run and jump up to a hanging branch, using that to swing back over to clamber on top of the menagerie cage. Here, under a domed gazebo was a capstan. And a giant bear was protecting it. To the prince, his luck couldn't get any worse!

The bear's strike to the ground in which the prince was standing a second ago crumbled to peices. He knew it would take all his sands to take down this monster so why not use them all at once? He went into super haste and started to chop and slcie the bear's hand's off, succeding only for the sand to quickly regenerate him.

He found that using the sand's to hurt him only served to heal him. He had to do something else. He jumped onto the bears back and tried to strangle the bear with his legs, The bear was trashing every peice of ground. Once the ground crumbled fully They both fell. The prince had a sudden idea. he knew a bear's weapness and aimed the tip of his sword, hoping it would work.

The bear hit the ground extremely hard, the prince falling ontop of him kicking the sword deep into the bears heart. If it had one... The bear was extremely weakened none the less. The prince took the dagger and stabbed it into the bear monster's belly, drawing the sands in. The bear was no more. Once again he climbed the tower and jumped up. Jumping over the hole the bear made and to the capstan

With no pause for breath, the Prince rotated it fully. Farah called up, "I just saw a door open!" The Prince could see it too, above her and below him. He ran and jumped across to a rock ledge where a Vision Cloud glimmered. The visions came and gone, leaving him waking beside the vision cloud like always.

With a few drops and swings, the Prince found himself outside the door he had opened. Heading in to investigate, he heard an indignant cry. "Hey!" He skidded to a halt and checked back down the slope outside first. Here was a hanging lever to operate, which brought a ladder sliding up from the ground below.

Farah clambered up. "I thought I'd make sure it was safe first," he said as he followed her, "before I brought you up." "I'll bet," she replied. He noticed her as if for the first time. As she waited for him in the doorway he stood close and considered her. She really was quite attractive, in an impudent sort of way.

She casually dusted off her sari and ran a hand over her hair, a little self-consciously. "What are you looking at?" she said indignantly. "Stop staring at me." He answered hastily, "I wasn't looking at you." They continued into the passage. It had been hewn out of the rock, like mine workings, and appeared to be used to store supplies for the zoo. The Prince mulled things over. "If you have believed the rest of my tale until now, perhaps you will also believe me when I tell you that as we made our way through the moonlit ruins, I began to feel strangely drawn to the girl at my side."

"My reason told me to distrust her, for she had good cause to hate me. Yet she had proven herself a loyal companion. And I confess I was grateful for company of someone who, like me, was flesh and blood." His thoughts came to life as Scarabs appeared, ready to taste that very same flesh and blood.

He slashed and kicked them aside, protecting Farah as best he could, until the last was split asunder by his sword. Farah stood under a hanging lever. "I can't reach it." The Prince could. He mounted a rocky platform and cleared some barrels to give himself room.

Then he ran out on the wall and jumped back from it, to lend his weight to the hanging lever. A cage door in the room slid open, and he dropped to the ground, a little heavily. "Are you all right?" asked Farah with concern. "I'm fine," he replied. "Thanks." In the caged room was only a single crate.

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Ok there it is ENJOY!!!

XD NEED MROE IDEAS!!!!!!

READ AND REVIEW!!!


	6. Finding the Door in

yo all it's your favorite author XD... i only get one review each chapter and only from you green ninja... hope you enjoy.. AND PM ME GOD DANG IT!

ENJOY!

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As he pulled it from the wall, the Prince was not too surprised to find it concealed a crack. He didn't have to ask Farah to perform her usual service. "So you 'wanted to make sure it was safe' then?" she said as she went. "Very heroic." He climbed on a ledge to retrieve a Sand Cloud and heard her announce an unknown discovery in some distaste. "Hey," she added sharply, "there's no door." "Stand on that pressure plate will you?" he suggested. 

This opened a door at the foot of the passage. The Prince hurried down before it closed behind him. "How do I get through?" asked Farah petulantly. "I don't know," he called back, "can't you crawl through a crack or something?" Amused at his little joke, the Prince made his way along the passage. 

He was wary of some traps there, but they appeared inactive. With a straight jump across a spike pit - there were pilasters either side to block his run - and the usual wall run over another, he reached the exit. "Here I am!" exclaimed Farah. She had beaten him down there after all. "All right," he sighed. "Now open the door." "What do you mean?" she asked. "Open it, how?" It had been too easy. 

If there was no switch outside, it had to be inside. The Prince returned to the gate at the top. Here he found a pull switch partly concealed behind loose barrels. He must be more careful. Clearing them away, he activated the switch. His heart sank a little as the traps below sprang into life, and he heard also the mechanical ticking that signified a timed switch. This would take speed and precision. 

He ran to the first rotating sword at the bottom of the slope and hugged the outside wall, choosing his moment to dash past the steadily swiping blade. He rolled expertly under the right side of the second blade and switched to the left side to tumble under the third, thereby avoiding a spiked tile beside each. 

A short hop over the first spike pit left him a moment to judge when to run over the two scything sword blades guarding the next one ahead. "The gate's closing," urged Farah. "Hurry!" To avoid taking a hit across the spiked tile, the Prince stopped short and edged very slowly forward, his light tread not springing the trap, and finally he rolled only just beneath the closing gate. "You did it!" cried Farah. 

They were outside the palace walls, in an area of rocky ledges, with buildings built high in the cliffs above and only mist down below. A rickety wooden rope bridge stretched ahead, a locked gate at its end. A Vision Cloud beckoned him across. He returned to Farah at the gate and decided to strike out to a ledge on the other side of a sheer cliff face. 

She folded her arms and pursed her lips, feigning indifference. "I'll wait here." On the ledge grew a lone palm tree. Very tall and very climbable. He used it to spring to another, and climbed higher still. As he clung on among the gently swaying fronds, he noticed a grassy ledge behind him, to which he sprang back. 

This appeared to be a roost for Sand Birds, which now screeched down to attempt to knock him off. He held his ground and, with Farah helpfully firing her Bow from below, soon consigned them to ashes. He ran out along the cliff face to grab a narrow crack, which he used to shuffle around to a point where he could spring back and grab another palm tree. Sliding down this, he claimed another Sand Cloud to refill his Dagger. 

Back up the tree, he sprang to another one conveniently near, and yet another, to scale it and jump back towards a waterfall on a very high ledge. Here he was threatened by a whole flock of Sand Birds. He had barely enough time to snatch a drink from the pool behind him before they swooped down one after another. Once again he held his ground and dealt with each one as they came at him. 

When he had peace the Prince dared a look over the edge and spotted Farah, a distant speck by the Vision Cloud far below. His feet kicked up feathers and grass as he ran to a narrow grassy ledge away from the waterfall. He edged along and dropped down by a wooden rope bridge, as dilapidated as the last yet a good deal more elevated. 

As he leaped a gap to the middle, the bridge bucked and swayed but the creaky planks held. He jumped to safety on the other side with relief. Here was a capstan bearing an orange symbol. By now he recognized this orange symbols denoted a main door whenever he passed through a particular area. He had already observed that the gate by the Vision Cloud now far below him bore this same orange symbol, so as he rotated the crank handle, he held the certain belief that it would open that very gate.

Which it did. "Come on," called the Princess. Did she appreciate the effort? He ran out on this higher cliff and leaped out to another tree. Shinning down it he was able to jump to another and then finally backwards to a grassy ledge. A minor matter of a wall run later he joined the Princess through the now open gate. 

She had her Bow drawn. "Look out for Scarabs!" she warned. The few that came out of hiding proved little trouble, and the pair pressed on into a steamy corridor. The Prince moved ahead. "Wait for me!" Farah cried after him. More Scarabs scuttled out of the mist but together the Prince and Princess saw them off. They moved on down the steamy corridor. At the end were very solid iron doors. 

One part of the wall nearby had been broken through, and the Prince looked inside. "The baths," he breathed quietly. Heaven knows what used to go on at this place, but it was filled with gimps and tarts. He jumped down and set about them. "Behind you!" warned Farah. He had met the Sand Maidens before, and knew their aim was to stalk him around the room, then make a sudden lunge to stab him with their steely knives. 

This dealt a lot of damage in one go. He therefore knew not to remain still too long, and kept an eye out for any likely assault as he singled out the male creatures first. These were armed with short weighted chains (just what DID go on in here?) which they swished constantly, always waiting for the chance to lash out. 

Vaulting Attacks took care of each of these, and he made liberal use of the Power of Restraint to freeze any that seemed too close to Farah, still perched up in the entrance hole. Her arrows occasionally stunned a creature nicely to wait for the attention of his blade. All in all it didn't take long to see the bath occupants off. 

With the room clear, Farah jumped down from the entrance and ran to his side. The Prince moved up a stone staircase to the next level of the baths. More Sand Creatures attacked here. Farah held back by the doorway, and even as the Prince fought off three Sand Creatures, a cry came from her, "Help me!" At which he broke off to assist, knowing her slow rate of fire could not long hold off a savage onslaught from the likes of a Sand Maiden. 

The Prince shrugged off the demonic scream: "Die! Die!" and hacked the being down without pity. When he was faced with the last Maiden, the Prince threw up his block and challenged her directly. 

They paced around the bath, the Maiden's knives raised to block his own jumps, until she launched her attack with her usual shrill cry. The Prince chose that exact moment to counter-strike, which parried the blow giving an opportunity to kick her in the face. As she attempted an over arm somersault, he leapt over her and dealt a counter-retrieve, holding the writhing body on the end of his Dagger and sucking up Sand as the perverted creature dissipated with a high-pitched wail. 

Having cleared the baths once and for all, the Prince looked around. High up to the ceiling were ledges and wooden platforms, yet he could find no way to them. A ladder in one corner looked promising, and a Sand Cloud glimmered somewhere above it, but he couldn't reach up. "What's the matter?" asked Farah. 

The Prince sounded annoyed. "It's wet." It seemed they would need to find something to climb up on in order to reach the ladder. He moved to the Vision Cloud, turning to Farah as he entered. "You understand," he said quietly, "don't you?" "Yes." 

Farah was attending close by as he recovered from the visions. "I'm all right," he reassured her. She seemed more relaxed about the strange ritual. "I know." The Vision gave the suggestion he look for a sculpture that could be moved, and on climbing the last staircase there seemed a likely object, with a yellow pressure plate nearby. 

The Prince was becoming used to this by now, and easily slid the stone object over the plate. Somewhere doors opened. The sculpture had apparently been used to hide a nasty crack. Farah did what she does. "Look!" as she squeezed through, "I'll see where it leads." Perhaps a little too hastily, the Prince ran through the open arch beside the floor switch. 

A wooden trap groaned into action and its spiked beam swung heavily down! The Prince made a quick exit and a more cautious return. Timing his run as the pendulum trap swung away, the Prince followed it forward to a ledge dead ahead and dropped to hang off the edge. He dropped further to the floor, taking only a little damage on landing, and it was then a simple matter to swing across a spike-trap gap to another identical space. 

There was no way to climb its smooth surface, so the Prince employed his athletic maneuver for a chimney ascent: 'Hut!- -nnn! Hut!--nnn!' At the top was an also identical spiked pendulum trap, where careful timing allowed him to dash beneath the heavy swinging log to reach an open door. This led into other baths, far more luxurious than those they just left. Mounted on a raised platform reached on three sides by steps was a blue-tiled pool of water. 

Doubtless the Sultan's personal bath. "I'm up here," called the Princess. His adventurous companion had found a safe vantage point from which to look down on another room filled with underdressed playmates. The Prince set about disturbingly distorted Maidens and Eunuchs once again. 

He chose as his battleground a shallow pool to the left of the entrance. This left Farah a clear view for a close shot, and he found that where she hit one of the creatures he had ample time to finish it off as it hunched over, temporarily stunned. Of course it meant too that he had to be careful not to get in the way of a wayward arrow. Up to his knees in water, he at least had no worry about health. 

Between the two of them, they soon managed to clear the room of harlots and tattooed love boys. Farah jumped down from her alcove. "There's something glowing up there," she said, gesturing to a high balcony. "I saw it from the ledge." Up the steps in the middle of the room, the Prince found a shallow tiled pool with a switch plate on the bottom. As he stepped on it a nearby door slid open. "Look," Farah exclaimed. "At the end of those three doors, there's some kind of lever." She helpfully held the first switch down as the Prince went to investigate two switches visible on the wall beyond the next small pool.

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Not as long as i wished it but oh well...needed to update it as fast as possible.

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	7. The Baths, Ruins of Old

WHOOOO...finally...here's the next chapter all.

Green ninja please pm me, we need a talk. also for anyone who wants another story, i'll be adding one shortly as to keep the spirits high. the timesplitters naruto cross is next so be ready.

ONWARDS!!

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The Vision Cloud showed the Prince how to activate the second switch. "That's two doors open," Farah confirmed. With no statue to prop against the third switch, the Prince tried the trusted upward wall run. It took two goes because of his wet feet. "You did it!" said Farah. "Hurry - before it closes." Being careful to skirt the Vision Cloud, the Prince hurried into the open chamber.

At the back he found a capstan and this proved to drain the larger pools outside. "The water -- !" called Farah. "It's going down!" Now that his feet would be dry, the Prince knew that he could climb walls as usual. Paying heed to the Vision, he looked around to find the ledges on which to climb.

It was a simple matter to swing along on the thin pipes thus easily reached, using nearby columns to move along to the next set of pipes before the Prince was able to swing onto a hanging lever. "I wonder what those levers do?" said Farah. A wooden gate slid partly upward. "That gate," she confirmed. "It's moving." The Prince dropped down by an oddly textured section of wall.

Light seemed to come from behind, and he struck it hopefully with his sword. He had to admit defeat. "A broken section of wall caught my eye. Perhaps a warrior with the strength of Rustam might have smashed through it, but alas I had not strength enough in my arm...nor in my sword." Diagonally across the room was another climbable ledge and more pipes and columns on which the Prince could swing.

As he made his way over there, the Prince examined a large, broken-down wooden door with some interest. "That door doesn't look so strong," remarked Farah. "Do you think you could smash it with your sword?" "Who do you think I am," he responded, "Rustam?" He performed his agile task across the second set of pipes and pillars, and was rewarded by a sluice gate opening conspicuously over by the entrance. "Look!" Farah cried.

She waited by the drained pool to draw attention to a marble block beside scratches on the dried-out surface of the bath. It was a simple matter for the Prince to heave it in the direction of the scratches, and on into the gap opened by the sluice gate. The block tumbled down the other side to land with a splash. "Stay there!" ordered the Prince.

He now backtracked a little, heading to the door with the spiked swinging logs. "Don't worry about me," said Farah. "I'll be fine here." Negotiating once more the pendulum traps and the chimneys, the Prince eventually found himself back in the first baths. Waiting in the water at the top level was the marble block, which he hauled to a gap where the water flowed down. He pushed the block through and followed it over.

Now he could use it to reach the ladder, which he promptly scaled. At the top he drew off the Sand Cloud into his Dagger. He climbed nimbly over the wall and dropped down to a wooden platform. He was above the room where he had first entered the baths.

Through a broken screen he found a narrow ledge on the other side. From this he jumped to a thin post, then on to a narrow ledge on another wall. He was able to hang off a higher ledge to shimmy along through broken bars to the room beyond, and although the ledge beneath him broke away as he approached, the Prince trusted its integrity when his own ledge likewise crumbled.

He reached a corner, where he grabbed the higher ledge once more to negotiate the turn, feet kicking up plaster dust as he went. A swing from a pole and he landed on a high wooden platform. He ran across the wall to another, then across the back wall of the room to another wooden platform in the far corner.

He ducked through a low doorway to the room beyond. Here was a sturdy wooden balcony and an easy run up the wall to back flip to a wooden rail, then on through a series of rails to slap hard against the far wall, barely landing on a narrow ledge. He edged sideways and arrived at a broad wooden corridor.

His footsteps thudded on the planking as he ran to the end, where barrels hindered his progress. He smashed through to find a timed floor switch. On activating this he had just a few seconds to negotiate two rotating sword traps in the passage beyond and roll through a closing door at the end.

Within was another pack of bathhouse habitues. The party was over in a matter of seconds as the prince took out every single enemy. When he was able, the Prince headed up a stone staircase to a wide balcony changing room, discreetly set behind screens.

At the end was an armoire, which he pushed and pulled to face the baths below. Climbing on this, the Prince was able to jump up and grab a metal pole and thereby swing over to pillars set around the Sultan's bath. "I think I see that glow you were talking about," he called down. "Be careful," answered Farah.

He jumped to each pillar in turn around the bath, until he could jump to another metal pole and land on the balcony opposite. The 'glow' was simply a Sand Cloud. He collected it and then headed to the other end of the screened room to claim his true reward.

A short wall run brought him to a private balcony and here, on a plinth, lay a sword. Bigger, heavier, stronger. He sheathed it in satisfaction. Back over the gap he noticed his first chance to test the new sword's abilities. The once sturdy wooden doors facing him looked now quite decrepit. Three blows of his sword reduced them to matchwood.

He hurried down a stone staircase, heedless of the patched look of the walls. At the foot of the stairs was the wooden door Farah thought he could break open from the other side. With his new sword it was the work of moments. "You do have the strength of Rustam," she remarked, joining him there. The joke wasn't getting funnier.

It gave him an idea though. The Prince hurried across the room to the stone wall he had tried to break down earlier. As hoped, it gave his new sword little trouble. Farah was curious. "That's not the same sword you had before..." A woman notices these things. He led the way down darkened stone steps. "Where are we?" asked Farah in hushed tones. "It's said this palace was built on the ruins of an even more ancient one," replied the Prince, "but I thought that was just a story..." They emerged in an underground cavern of massive stone columns, the foundation of the Palace of Azad above.

Mist rose from the depths. Water dripped and the wind moaned around rocks and pillars. There was a constant noise, a low eerie screech of unseen animals. "Now what do we do?" asked Farah. They were on a stone balcony with broken steps leading down in front. In that direction lay the exit.

The Prince thought he could start to find a way down if he could somehow reach up to a metal bar just above the broken steps. At one end of the balcony was a stone plinth, perhaps the base for a sculpture. It was of just the right height for his purpose. As the Prince pulled it toward the steps, a crack was revealed. "I'll go!" offered Farah.

He must make a point of looking behind crates and plinths. The block was dragged to the centre of the balcony and pushed against the wall, suspiciously it looked very much as if it belonged there. The Prince was now able to run up the wall and leap off to snatch the metal bar behind.

He swung to another bar and then took the risk of a heavy drop by leaping off onto a stone platform, evidently once part of the steps leading back to the balcony. From here he could run and jump to a ledge further down, and not for the first time he wondered who had the job of lighting all the torches around here. At least he could see clearly to shuffle around the corner on a ledge.

Dropping down to grab hold, each movement brought a thin shower of dust but the rock held as he made his way around and dropped to ledges further below. It was cold and clammy in the mist of the depths. He was faced with a chimney to climb but he was by now well used to the effort and made short work of it.

Clambering up ledges on the other side brought him in sight of a Sand Cloud, glimmering on a stone platform below. He climbed to the highest available ledge to give himself the necessary elevation and launched himself across the chasm to reach it or die trying. He reached it, just. "Here I am!" called Farah from a doorway some distance below. "I can't open the gate..." "Stay there," he said. "I'll come down to you." But how?

He collected the Sand then searched for a place to jump down off the pillar. It all looked impossibly risky. Farah called across, "There's a ledge, right below you." It looked precarious but the Prince risked the drop off the sheer edge of the pillar of rock. He fell hard but held on, to shimmy around the corner where with a backward leap he felt himself on firmer ground.

He made his way around some ledges to pull up and join Farah. "There you are!" she said, relieved. It was a small room with thick fluted columns. On one side was a door, marked with a white symbol. At the centre of the room was a capstan with a crank handle showing the same symbol.

He was surprised that Farah hadn't worked it out but allowed that she may not have had the strength to turn it. As he put his shoulder to the crank, the Prince felt a strange sense of deja vu, almost as if he had been in this place in a past life. With the crank pointed at the door it slid open.

At once Scarabs moved towards them through the gap. The Prince dashed forward to see them off. "Careful!" warned Farah. He could be impulsive and daring, maybe even a little reckless but he was not foolish. He was aware that the beetles carried a sting and who knew how long it would be until the next water was available. He was careful. Soon enough the corridor was silent.

At the far end was a very long pit - impossible to run over - and in one corner a stone plinth. A plinth? I wonder... "Look," exclaimed Farah, "a crack!" She left through it, and the Prince busied himself hauling the plinth to the edge of the pit, tight against the wall. He sensed that he would find it useful. "Here I am!" called Farah. She had somehow found her way to the other end of the pit.

He could barely make her out in the murkiness of this underground passage. Activating a switch over there triggered stone ledges sliding from the walls out over the pit. Not a perfect path, but he felt he could use the ledges as stepping-stones. "Can you make it?" asked Farah. "Don't step off that switch," he said sternly.

Starting his run off the plinth he had placed against the wall allowed the necessary height to fall just onto the first platform. Now he executed a wall run and backward jump to reach the second, and repeated the trick back to the other side for the third. He landed on the ledge at the end beside Farah. "You made it!" she said admiringly.

Behind her was a ladder, and she turned to climb up. The Prince lagged back since he was, after all, a gentleman. They were in a tall darkened corridor, decorated with friezes. As they moved towards daylight, Farah sensed trouble and drew her Bow. Sand Creatures patrolled the room at the end.

The Prince ran in among the pillars at the sides of the high-ceilinged yet rather bare room, using them to launch himself at the savage Blue Guards as they appeared. Other slow-witted goons with hooks were not so much trouble, these being susceptible to his Vault Attack.

He added a refinement that he had learned: how to snatch their sand on his descent in one fluid move that left them screaming in helpless rage on the point of his raised Dagger. Patiently the Prince worked the room, doing his best to keep any attacker off Farah. She in turn supported him, stunning strays where she could draw a bead. At last the enemies were gone and the Prince received his next Vision.

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and cut! there ya go, hope this satisfies you till next chapter and next story. hopefully i don't get side tracked or get into a situation that calls me to go away fro awhile. here it is enjoy and have a nice day

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	8. Dining, the point of no return

ok, here's the best i can do under circumstances, hopefully it's enough.

ONWARDS TO THE STORY!! (from now on all my sotires and chapters will have a sort little talk with me and the characters)

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He found the Visions helpful in learning the art of combat. He saw that he would shortly face many enemies in a close struggle, trading blow for blow. He would relish it. He felt himself in desperate need of water, yet there was nothing in the room of any description that could refresh him.

It gave the appearance of a place of worship, empty though it was. In one corner an archway had been hastily walled up: the cracks were apparent. It may not have taken much longer to put up than the Prince took to bring it down, at which the pair made their way into a much brighter, though quite shabby corridor.

Here at last was a fountain, at which the Prince drank gratefully. Through an arch down some steps the corridor looked better kept, and here was a solid wooden door bearing a yellow symbol. "We'll need to open this door," said the Prince. "Look for a switch." It didn't take much looking, just a few feet away on the floor behind some barrels.

The Prince cleared them aside then stepped on the switch. "The door's open," said Farah, decisively, "I'm going in!" "Don't!" he warned. "Wait for me!" He ran to join her. "Hurry," she called out. "It's closing!" The door clanged irreversibly shut behind him. The room was occupied by Blue Guards and hulking Captains.

These brutes were such as the man at the gate he had seen so long ago in charge of his father's soldiers and their battering ram. This is what had become of them.

Looking around, the Prince's thoughts were momentarily elsewhere. "A soldier's mess hall. The smell of food still wafted from the kitchen. Scant hours ago these tables had been filled with men, joking in camaraderie over their evening meal, just as my father's men do back home in Seraph, at ease because they think themselves safe within the castle walls with no enemy to fight. How could they know the enemy was already among them?" He set to, knowing that he faced a desperate hand-to-hand fight, no quarter to be asked or given.

He kept his guard up as they circled, looking for an opening, and as one took a lunge the Prince bounded forward to assail them as they were open. He watched for the Captains to prepare their devastating swipes - whirling their swords about their heads - and hit them hard then.

More often than not they instantly blocked, but he was at least able to limit their attack on him. He moved around wooden tables, looking for a moment to Rebound and send two or three to the ground, at which he could spring over and take their Sand. The Blue Guards looked most likely to threaten the Princess, and he stayed as close as he dared, ready to set one in stone if it looked ready to slash with its pike.

Should one catch him and knock him back, he was sure to get back on his feet before others gathered round. As he began to lose health the Prince made his way down the steps where he found a fountain to one side. By using one or two as a stone shield, he could buy time to recover lost health and still turn to retrieve before they revived. By these means and much patience, the Prince won through in his toughest battle yet.

The Prince investigated his surroundings. There was nothing to be done in the dining area upstairs, but on the lower level was a promising pile of rubble. Noticing a metal pole that might be used to swing up to higher ledges, the Prince clambered on the rocky debris. "What are you doing?" demanded the Princess. "Just wait," he assured her.

Running out on the wall, he caught hold of the pole and swung ahead. Farah called up disconsolately, "You know I can't climb like you can." She gasped sharply as the Prince swung high onto a ledge. With the use of a convenient pole from the wall, he swung across to more ledges, where he climbed high to a raised platform.

Here was more Sand to collect before turning back to strike out in the other direction. Through a gap in some trellis he found a stone walkway that, although broken in parts, he managed to traverse to find a simple floor switch at its end. This raised a door nearby and he found himself outside, looking over the palace grounds far below.

Mighty cataracts arched gracefully from the palace walls and spilled to the depths below, too far to be heard. The rampart on which he found himself led in one direction to some wooden scaffold left by absent workers. The opposite direction led to a drop. The way ahead was barred by a raised drawbridge, just as he had seen in the Vision.

He must find the switch that lowered it. Returning to the branch of the rampart that led to a drop, he noticed flagpoles sticking from the wall at just a convenient angle... Here we go again. He leaped to the first pole, which bent and bounced under his weight but mercifully did not break, then swung to the next and released, to rebound acrobatically to the pole above.

From this he turned and swung to the safety of a nearby low roof. As he prepared to heave himself up onto another section of ramparts, spiked poles swished into action upon it. Choosing his moment, the Prince pulled up and ran to another section with other spiked poles, and similarly dived through at just the right moment, then past yet more. At the corner he found two others, sliding in opposition, and again he ducked and dived between them, careful to avoid what very obviously were spiked tile traps flanking their path.

He stopped at the next set of spikes, noticing yet more spiked tile traps right across the rampart here. In order to run along the wall passing over them, he needed to chose his moment carefully - just as the final set of spiky poles moved away from the wall. The blades within the tiles sprang up wickedly beneath his scampering feet but he managed to miss them all to drop safely on the other side.

Rounding the corner of the ramparts, the Prince caught the first rays of light of a day that, now and many times before, he thought he might never see. In front of him was a switch symbol on a wall, from which he jumped back to pull a hanging lever. This opened a door alongside, and he ran gratefully inside. "I'm down here," came a familiar voice.

He was indeed back in the Soldier's Mess Hall, now high above. He ran down a flight of stairs to find another symbol beneath a hanging lever. As he activated this a ladder slid from the wall below, billowing clouds of dust. Farah eagerly climbed up, Bow in hand. "Thanks!" she said cheerfully. "Don't mention it," the casual response. The pair ran back up the stone staircase.

The Prince paused at the still open door to the ramparts. "We're above the Zoo," he told her. "We'll need to cross that bridge." At the end of the corridor was a gate, very much shut and the corresponding switch in an ornate caged room the other side of it. "Now what?" wondered the Prince.

Without a word, the Princess flattened herself to the ground and slid beneath the gate. "Yes," said the Prince. "I was just going to suggest that." Here was another Sand Cloud, and once he had refilled the Dagger, the Prince ran upwards and back off the wall to a hanging lever.

This activated the drawbridge outside. "You did it!" cried Farah as she ran out to see. The Prince dropped down off the lever and used the generously timed pressure pad on the floor to follow Farah to the ramparts outside. He found a spot to jump down nearby, where the wooden scaffold had been left. It seemed a little late to repair the palace walls. With the drawbridge now lowered, the way ahead was clear.

The Prince made use of a fountain at the bridgehead before racing across. Straight into materializing Sand Creatures! These were another mix of Blue Guards and Captains, his toughest opponents. On the narrow confines of the bridge, fighting was harder. He put up his block, but was caught repeatedly by swinging attacks. Farah was vulnerable here too - though she stayed back by the fountain, too often a Sand Creature focused his attentions on her.

The Prince found that he could distract the creature with a reminder from his sword, but conversely an arrow from Farah would send them angrily in search of the culprit. With the lack of space, the counter-blocking, his ineffective Vault Attack and their tendency to knock him over the edge at any opportunity, the Prince began to find the battle against the Blue creatures hard going.

Checking that his Dagger was fully charged, he decided to unleash the extent of its awesome power. He executed the Power of Haste. This froze time for everyone but himself! With his enemies now confounded, the Prince moved amongst them at will, striking each down at tremendous speed in a single blow.

The time over which this power could be sustained was short, but the devastating attack cleared everything in his path; those few that survived were more easily dealt with now that their number was diminished. At length he sheathed his sword. Returning to the fountain - this time with more humility - the Prince recovered his health and set off to the tower once more. The barred gate in the reception chamber was a mere trifle with the corresponding capstan and its crank close beside. Farah and the Prince entered in moments. They were in a cavernous room.

A huge central column, which appeared to be part of some sort of machine (it bore a grooved thread) supported a wooden platform, which jutted out on top. Their objective could be seen as a platform with a ladder by a door with an orange symbol, right at the top of the room.

The only means to attempt access was a flight of stone steps. "I'll just wait for you here then, shall I?" said the Princess as the Prince made his way up. He still couldn't tell if she was simply ribbing him. At the top of the steps was a lever of the kind with which he was now quite familiar, but on hanging from this it appeared useless; the platform in the centre remained motionless and out of reach.

There seemed little else to do but go down again, whereon he noticed lamp poles sticking out from the wall. They looked about the right height to jump to from the landing where Farah now waited. They might help him reach a second hanging lever, which he could just make out on another balcony opposite. "That's strange," said Farah, "I almost feel as if I've lived this moment before." The things he could tell.

He ran and caught the lowest pole, and turned to swing up to the next. Another turn and he was able to use the series of poles to swing all the way over to the balcony on the far side of the room. Here was another switch, perhaps more useful? He tried it. A-ha! The central platform ground and clanked with mechanical precision, rising and swinging through a quarter turn to lock into position, midway between the Prince and Farah. "It's stopped," she called. "Pull it again." On jumping up once more, the Prince found that now this switch appeared useless!

What was wrong? A thought occurred as he hopped down. "I think I see how this works," he called over. "Try pulling yours now." Farah jumped up with a short exhalation and pulled her lever. The platform clanked and swung into life once more, turning and rising to lock into place.

Now it was facing Farah and she ran on to it, calling to the Prince. "Now pull the lever." Sure enough, the central platform rotated another ninety degrees. "Good!" she exclaimed, as she ran from the platform to climb up on stone blocks to another platform above. "Here I am," she called. "I'll pull the lever." The central platform rotated once more and had now been raised high above. "There's another lever up there," said Farah. "Can you reach it?" Could he reach it! He'd show her.

Climbing on a rock shelf nearby, he was about to jump up to grab a ledge when he noticed sparks from a saw blade just above. He'd better slow down and hoist up more carefully. He just managed to scramble to a ledge above before the blade scythed its way back.

Now he had to cling to the wall to sidle beneath a large hole that had been smashed into the palace wall during the destruction wrought by the Sands as they were unleashed. He was unable to jump to grab it from where he stood, but Farah's efforts had swung the platform to a position close behind.

A leap into hope and he was able to grab by his fingertips and hoist up onto it. He turned and leapt back across the gap to stand in the hole in the wall, morning light streaming through. The Prince looked down at his tattered sleeve and tore the remnant from his tunic.

He felt less restricted and looked a bit manlier too. The wind whistled about the rooftops and walls, and from this height he could see far to distant misted hills with sun bursting through above. There was not time to admire the breathtaking view. Jumping down, the Prince landed on a balcony. He saw far below the drawbridge where he had just fought the desperate battle.

There was only one way to go: across the broken balcony, where a blow from his sword cleared two wooden casks that impeded him. With a swing off a handy pole he easily crossed the broken gap and found another entrance, to arrive at a balcony inside once again. "There you are!" Farah said as he reappeared and got his bearings. "There's a lever above you. Try pulling it." Very helpful. He ran up a wall by a white symbol there and jumped back to a hanging lever near it.

The platform ground its way around once more, stopping at his balcony. He dropped off the lever to run onto it. "Hang on," called Farah. "I'm pulling mine." The platform rotated yet again and the Prince ran to the end to leap out and grab a ledge directly in front.

He jumped up to grab another, then pulled up once more to leap backwards, onto a ladder suspended from what was, at last, the highest balcony. Another door, another switch to be found. The Prince followed the balcony around the room and almost fell from its edge. "Who-oa-oh!" He used the wall to run out and grab a hanging lever, which released a ladder for the eager Farah to climb. "I'm coming!" Farah quickly scaled the ladder to join the Prince up on the balcony.

She ran ahead as he dangled from the lever. Not even a thank you! He swung down to join her at the door. "Think you can fit under this gate?" he murmured. "I'll really be impressed." Farah soon found a small hole just beside. He responded airily, "I knew that hole was there; I just wanted to see if you knew." After a moment the door slid upward.

Farah stood, without comment, on the switch outside. Yes, she was proving her worth just a little. They were on a flat stone bridge now very high above the ground. All strangely quiet. A Vision Cloud could be seen beckoning just across the bridge. As Farah ran ahead, Sand Birds loomed on either side, flapping menacingly into life at their approach. "Keep running!" yelled the Prince.

He followed his own advice and ran as hard as he could across the bridge. As the birds swooped down he dodged and rolled, and made it safely to Farah's side. She had already hit one target with the Bow. "Look out!" she cried.

As a Sand Bird crashed in flames to the bridge, it gave way, the sections cracking and rumbling as great pieces of masonry tumbled downwards. In one heave the whole bridge collapsed, bringing with it mighty pillars and stone debris, the entirety crashing and thundering to the ground.

That would take some clearing up. The Prince turned to Farah, she having slipped inside through a hole in the gate. He waited to follow her in. "The switch is broken!" she exclaimed. "Very funny," he said without humor. "Come on, open the gate." "No, I mean it," she insisted. "It's really broken." He could see the damage to the gate. "All right," he sighed. "You go on down; I'll find another way in." "Try not to take too long," she offered.

Now she was being funny. The Vision Cloud helped show him the way ahead, inevitably via a series of very precarious-looking jumps.

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well...DONE!!

XD LOL ok, here's something you might not have guessed, the library will be harder and then it's a straight shot from there. hopefully everything will be a-ok.

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	9. Well, well, well, Baths and Wells

well, here's the next chapter

The prince: i want a fight this time, none of that i fight and win sentence stuff. i want you to show my greatness

Prince gets hit by an arrow: OW!

Farah: SORRY!

Prince: damn it woman, you'll be the death of me

Farah walked off, the prince chasing after her

well seems this relationship is going well.

Farah and the prince come back hitting me with their weapons

OW HEY! Stop- OWWW!! i was JOKING!! UNCLE UNCLE NOOOOOO!!

Sand creature comes in:...chapter...start...WRAAAAAHHHHRRR!!

ONWARDS!!

--

Farah watched with some concern through the bars of the gate, as the Prince dropped off the balcony to hang from a ledge. The ground was now very far below. For a moment he wondered if he could drop to another ledge, which seemed only just beneath, but soon noticed a stone column rising off a ledge nearby. He shuffled across and leapt backwards to clutch it tightly.

With another broken column in reach, he slid down a little and was able to use that one to leap back to the castle walls, where now he could grab the narrow ledge he'd seen shortly before. He was careful not to lose his grip, having noticed a nasty collection of spikes just underneath.

Using the narrow ledge and continuing to a gap in the wall, the Prince hopped nimbly around to a wide chimney formed by the castle walls. For a moment he was stuck. With nowhere to jump to, getting down might prove tricky, but get down he must. Well, he reasoned, if he could climb a narrow gap like this by springing side-to-side, perhaps he could descend just as easily? Easily! What was he thinking? With a grunt of effort and a brave leap backwards, he sprang against the wall behind, and then in a slow confident rhythm, back again the moment he touched, moving in this manner smoothly down the chimney, a little at a time: A-Hut!... Mmm!... A-Hut!... Mmm!... A-Hut!... Mmm! all the way to the bottom.

Yet there was to be not even a pause for breath; at his first touch the floor began to give way! Stone flags crumbled and cracked, sailing to the depths far below.

Lest he join them, the Prince ran desperately ahead of each falling section, where without hesitation he ran up a wooden tower wall dead ahead and leapt back, to hang by his fingertips from a pole sticking out. Nothing now below him but a very sheer drop.

He turned and swung to the top of the wooden tower, landing with a gasp of effort. He hauled on top to finally catch his breath. Farah appeared on a balcony just above. "I'm up here!" A little too far out of reach. "Down below," she said, "there's a great open balcony. Come on, I'll show you!" "That's easy for you to say," muttered the Prince.

He dropped down off the other side of the tower to a walkway beneath, thankfully more solid than the last. A short hop up to a crack and he was able to clamber around to leap to a column on a balcony opposite. "Here I am," called Farah brightly, now the other side of a wide gap and a rather long drop. "Stay there," he suggested. "I'll come down to you." Refilling his Dagger at a nearby Sand Cloud, he heard Farah call over. "Come on!" "It's too far," he replied. "I can't jump it." "You can do it!" she urged.

Well, there was one way to find out. Then again... "If I fall to my death," he suggested, "will that convince you?" "There's no need to get nasty." Luckily there was another pillar at the far edge of his balcony and another crack in the wall on Farah's side. Using the pillar to gain the necessary height, he was back over on her side in no time. Still he was unable to get inside where Farah stood. "I know where I am," she announced. "This gate leads to the baths. Do you think you could you find your way there?" "Of course, finding my way to the baths from here should be easy." "Good," was the pert response. "I'll meet you there." At which, the Princess disappeared into the palace.

The Prince made his way around to where a gigantic collapsed pillar stopped up a gap he might otherwise have used to join her. He dropped down to shimmy along under it. The situation struck him as faintly ridiculous. "I'll just ask the first Sand Creature I run into: Could you direct me to the baths, please? Well, thank you. 'Don't mention it, I used to be a bath attendant back when I was alive...'" He was still indignant at the Princess's manner towards him.

He mimicked: "'I'll meet you at the baths!' She orders me around as if I were a servant!" He reflected on the cause. "It's my own fault. With women you need to show them you're in charge right from the start or they'll walk all over you. I've been too indulgent - probably because I felt sorry for her." He made a firm decision, "Well, it stops now! From now on, she'll have to toe the line." "That is..." a sobering thought, "assuming that I can find her." He had reached a narrow wall connecting two parts of the Palace of Azad.

With the grace of a tightrope walker, he edged cautiously along it, trying not to look down. A narrow ledge on the other side brought him safely to a balcony, where he was grateful to find a small fountain. He took a long drink, and made his way through an open doorway. Here was a terrace balcony.

A table laid with food and drink stood upon it; the diners had evidently departed in haste. The balcony overlooked a courtyard, somewhat ruined. Large black birds flapped indolently.

He had seen enough of these to know that they would not leave of their own accord. Down below he observed a Sand Cloud, and on a low rooftop opposite, a Vision Cloud. That seemed a good place to head. By running off the edge of the walkway ahead - his footsteps cracking the crumbling stone as he went - the Prince was able to jump to a series of flag posts. He swung effortlessly from each, swooshing through the air to leap and drop down directly into the Vision Cloud.

According to the Vision his task was to involve plenty of levers and switches, running around walls and inevitably a good amount of creature combat. He took heart from the certainty that Farah awaited at the end of it all. Dropping down from the roof, he set off along the thin edges of the walls ahead, once more balanced precariously.

He leapt a small gap, and then faced a larger one across a pair of iron gates opened wide in the wall under his feet. This leap he made easily enough by lining up with care.

The birds flapped overhead, seemingly disinterested. The Prince was thankful for that, but would that situation last? Working his way along the top of each wall, he came to a wider gap, and guessed he would have to jump to the partially collapsed wall in the centre of the yard.

He made the jump at an awkward angle, but grabbed as he fell and hauled up. At this, the first bird attacked! He had discovered it was hard enough to keep his balance, let alone with sword in hand. The birds seemed determined to knock him off. He found that it was a simple matter to let them lunge, then if he were hit he could quickly scramble back up, draw his sword and slash them as they flapped still near at a blade's length.

One after another, they screeched and collapsed in flame at the touch of his sword, falling one by one until all were gone. It even seemed peaceful then, yet somewhere in the distance could be heard strange animals noises. Was this once part of the Sultan's zoo? It would explain the cell-like rooms, and the bars everywhere.

The Prince made his way carefully around the tops of the walls. He could see a Sand Cloud glowing behind a low wall very nearby, but he judged the gap too far to jump.

There had to be another way to it. He carefully balanced down a slight incline and continued around the wall's edge to the very tip of a narrow wooden jetty, from which he could leap across to a rusted metal beam. He slipped cautiously along it to arrive gratefully on the solid floor of a small room hosting a familiar hanging lever.

This lowered a gate to the cage underneath, and raised also a ladder to the room, allowing him to slide to the very ground of the abandoned zoo. An insistent ringing nearby alerted him to the presence of a Sand Cloud. With the one he saw earlier still out of reach but surely awaiting collection, the Prince had more Sand than he needed, and realized he need not have held back on the Dagger's powers when those birds proved so troublesome!

He decided to thoroughly investigate the ruins. It seemed a little confusing at first, but he explored each area, and soon found a narrow gap beside a barred portcullis into a small yard, where he stood before a large door marked with an orange switch symbol.

The switch itself was nowhere to be seen. Surely this was the way out of this fearful place? In the cage next to this could be seen a white symbol over a pull-switch lever, as yet sealed behind bars he knew he must somehow open.

Eventually the Prince found the cage he had opened with the hanging lever, and here was another lever within. Eagerly he jumped up to pull it. All around the courtyard, such iron gates as were still operational ground open. One of the cages released a swarm of crawling Scarabs.

The Prince dropped down off the lever and rushed out to see them off. It was the work of minutes, and good practice for his sword. Having a little peace then, he found again the room with the pull switch, now open. On activation of this switch, an insistent: 'Tock-tock-tock-tock!' told him he had no time to lose in finding the door thereby released.

To his dismay, it was not the large door just next to the switch, but he could see that at least the portcullis in front of it had been raised. He remembered then that the latest Vision contained a hint of a dash across just such a device, this being now possible from the point directly below the Vision Cloud.

He guessed too that this was also the way to reach the other Sand Cloud. The portcullis across which he must dash seemed to be slowly descending, although doubtless not slowly enough.

He had to get up there fast! Being now quite familiar with the layout of the cages, he quickly made his way to the ladder, and back up and out onto the beams and wall tops once again.

With as much haste as he dared, the Prince jumped and edged back across the gate to the centre of the yard. With quick yet careful alignment, he risked a leap over to the large iron gates (now closed), and back across to the place where he had first edged onto these walls.

On safe arrival here there were only seconds to use as he saw the portcullis nearly closed. He ran only just on the raised edge as it fell, to grab and haul up beside the elusive Sand Cloud. Claiming his reward, the Prince entered the small room behind it. Here was another hanging lever.

This raised a ladder opposite just outside. With a dash across the wall above the main gate, he reached a platform where the ladder awaited, and noticed a switch symbol in the room adjoining. At last he'd found the one that matched the orange of the main gate.

He went in and scarcely noticed the makeshift condition of one wall behind barrels, so eager was he to release the floor switch and leave the zoo. The switch proved to be on a very short timer; just barely enough for him to slide down the ladder and roll under the gate before it slid shut.

Quite tricky when in a way he wasn't sure if he were coming or going! He was now in an area of neatly kept grass, with nothing to see or do other than go through a stone portal ahead. The end of the short tunnel within had, at first sight, been solidly walled up. Yet light shone through cracks... He took out his sword and struck out with all his might. Several blows later the wall collapsed.

Here was plenty of water but not the baths he was looking for. He wondered how Farah was faring. "Oh, have you been waiting here all this time? I didn't realize you meant these baths! I went to the other baths clear across the other side of the city. I had a lovely wash and a rub with fragrant oils. Too bad you weren't there..." What was he doing, he wondered? "Stop talking to yourself!" He balanced carefully across a wooden beam to a platform ahead and took stock. He was in a huge cavern, lit icy blue with light pouring from high above.

Far below was a river and rocky pools, with the sound of plunging waterfalls all around. The platform on which he stood had signs of being used for storage of some provisions or other, and he could see far below another wooden beam. With no better option, he decided to make his way down and see where it led.

He moved along crumbling ledges, which restricted his passage to a single path. He dropped down where he could and presently saw a number of Scarabs hovering in the waters below. Dropping eventually into the wide river over the cavern's basin, he set about the undead pests with his sword, and very nearly didn't notice that the powerful current was sending him drifting to the rushing edge of a waterfall!

He fought his way off to safer ground. With every demon insect despatched, the Prince had for certainty a plentiful supply of water to restore him for the surely perilous journey ahead. He first looked out over the fast flowing waters and spotted a Sand Cloud nearly lost amid the rainbow-haloed sheen of a waterfall close behind the rock on which it stood. After collection, he made his way over on to the wooden beam he'd spotted from above.

Here now he saw the full extent of the cavern, with its treacherous waterfalls crashing to the icy depths, ledges and beams winding all the way down among them. There was nothing for it but to make a start. He negotiating once again crumbling ledges that forced him on a fixed path, but as before, one way down suited as well as another. Through a series of ledges he dropped to a platform by a waterfall.

A running jump across the face of this brought him - a little wetter - to another wooden beam. He started across. From the depths of the cavern rose a dozen fluttering bats, possessed by the Sands and intent on his blood! There seemed no choice other than to swipe as best he could as they gathered close about him, and with each successful slash a flurry and scattering of the creatures, which then regrouped to close in once more.

Again and again they came, and he slashed with a satisfying spatter of yellow Sand and a screech at each hit. Even on the occasion that he was caught off guard and slipped from the beam, he managed to scramble up and resume as they attacked again. When he had thinned the demonic flock to two or three alone, they scuttled away, yellow eyes blazing. He guessed they would make further attempts at his flesh, and made greater haste.

Sure enough, as the Prince dropped down to a smaller waterfall, the possessed creatures returned, still intent on nipping at his body, perhaps sending him plunging to his doom in the process. He stood his ground and slashed in a timely manner, reducing their number such that they retired defeated a second time.

Over a series of beams and with a few running leaps, the Prince made it to the sanctuary of another Vision Cloud, which by now he was eager to use to find the way in difficult situations. He saw that he should prepare for more beam walking and running over collapsing wooden platforms, clinging to and jumping from fragile icicles along the way.

There was, too, a further Vision of Farah, this time more troubling: the Dagger and great pain somehow between them. Another beam and another tunnel ending in a stone wall. Another job for his sword. Here were the wooden platforms he'd seen in the Vision - he lingered not, and still barely made it over one and another, each plank creaking and collapsing behind him as he ran to the safety of a rock pool ledge.

More casks stood about, and here was another stone wall to be broken down. More collapsing wooden platforms in the cavern beyond. The Prince made it swiftly to a mossy ledge in a corner, and unsheathed his sword as yet more bats attacked. It seemed best to remain still and slash when he could; trying to slip away on the narrow ledge seemed only to invite them on, and he could too easily fall.

He waited patiently and dealt with each flurried attack, and in no time they retired as before. He made his way now onto a crumbling ledge, where it seemed he could go no further.

Yet here were thick icicles suspended from the cavern roof. Either stalagmites or stalactites. What was it he learned at school: "'tites come down"? No, no - 'g' from the ground, 'c' from the ceiling, that was it. Stalactites, definitely. He followed the Vision and took a leap of faith, landing safely, clinging for a bare moment before spinning quickly and jumping once more, even as the ice gave a hollow crack and fell away.

He scrambled onto a wooden platform, which inevitably began to give way under his weight. He ran as hard as he could to another, and then took a running leap off the wall at the hint of a shadow cast by another dangling shard of ice. A quick revolution off this and he launched himself to a rock ledge, where he pulled safely up.

He shuffled around the ledge and gathering his strength jumped out once more to another stalactite, and on to another, and another without pause. As each cracked and fell he leaped just in time, clinging barely to every tip, before spinning and leaping for the next. Eventually he landed on a rock platform, where he fell gratefully into a fresh Vision Cloud.

The vision showed his death, falling into a pool of water from a height not even a lake can save. He had seen his death multiple times at the hands of himself, traps, and people itself. He always came out without a scratch, all he had to do was be careful and wise about how he handles his way down like the vision had shown.

The final series of dangling stalactites seemed less daunting to him now, although the leaps came fast with barely a second to line up for the next. He made it across the cavern safely and collected a Sand Cloud to refill such of his tanks as had been expended thus far.

He came now on a cavern lit brightly from above where daylight poured in. Wooden platforms were scattered about the cylindrical walls, giving all the appearance of use by some primitive peoples. These platforms looked more robust than those he had recently passed over.

This place seemed calmer too; perhaps the effect of birdsong from somewhere nearby. He hoped such peace would last. Of course, no sooner had he crossed to the first platform than the bats returned, more determined than ever to shorten his life. Yet there was ample room to maneuver on the sturdy platforms, and the Prince whirled about, scattering the flying creatures easily, and suffering in that no more than a scratch.

There seemed a number of routes to follow to the ground, by running to the different platforms and sliding down ladders, but the effect was surely the same. In no time the Prince was on the pool floor, quite refreshed. He made his way into the mouth of a cave there.

The wall at the end of it was as easily smashed as the rest, and he waded down the last tunnel to emerge through broken bars into a vast man-made chamber, tinged eerily green. Knee-deep in water, the Prince looked around. Stone pillars connected by beams and ledges, some broken.

Around the room were alcoves and arches, all seemingly beyond reach. Buckets dangled from ropes; this chamber was evidently the cistern for the palace above, where fresh water could be drawn from its reservoir. Water dripped everywhere upon the surface.

The vast cistern had but one means of escaping its flooded basin. The Prince found a small pile of rock against one wall, where a Vision Cloud shimmered close by. He had long since realized that he should head towards one of these when he was able. From the alcove, he tested a new skill by leaping to a rope.

The bucket it held splashed to the ground, but the Prince clung on and aligned himself with the alcove containing the Vision Cloud, before swinging (a little awkwardly) towards it. When he judged he had enough momentum, he released his grip and sprang from the rope to land safely. The Vision confirmed to him a suspicion that he would have a lot more swinging from ropes to achieve before climbing up into the light.

By now he felt himself quite expert at balancing along beams, and although he may occasionally have overbalanced and toppled, he managed to scramble back up without harm. On one of the longer beams he was assailed yet again by bats, but fought them off with the same patient determination.

They seemed more of an irritant than a danger. When they had screeched and flapped away once more, he continued along the beam, noticing a Sand Cloud glinting somewhere above, yet out of reach behind bars. At length he worked his way around the stone beams and climbed up on a pillar, from where a short distance sliding out on another beam allowed him to align for a leap at another rope.

He swung from this to hang from a beam in the centre of the room. He shuffled along and around the next column to walk out on a further stone beam. When he was able, he leapt for a rope in the corner of the room, and once again the bucket it held fell noisily into the water.

He eased around to face the next rope along, and creaked his way towards it before crossing his fingers and flying off towards it. Despite his doubts, the Prince caught the rope effortlessly and now saw an opportunity to swing into an open alcove. Here were vicious razor and saw traps, which he had quite forgot existed. By timing his jump up the wall carefully, he grabbed a ledge above one blade and pulled up when the blade above that had passed safely.

Now he simply shuffled along the ledge after it, ready to drop and grab as soon as it returned. A quick shimmy and a climb and a shuffle and a drop, and just there in an alcove was a Sand Cloud to be gathered. A climb up a ledge between snaps of some razor cutters seemed effortless by comparison.

In the next room was a hanging lever, and this opened a wooden hatch in the centre of the room. It also released more bats. The Prince seemed hardly concerned about these, and lowered himself into the hatch. Great swiping blades rotated beneath him. Taking a deep breath, the Prince dropped down, trusting to luck whether one or other of the blades would catch him. He had little concern over recovering his health as he was now in an alcove back in the reservoir.

Here was a block to be tumbled into the water, and as he followed it down the Prince was attacked yet again by squealing bats. Did they never learn? He twirled and slashed and saw them off once and for all. He surely deserved a drink after all that. The stone block had an obvious use with a Sand Cloud twinkling close above. He had to take a couple of goes to scrabble up because of his wet booties. Once more the Prince clambered up on the stone ledges and made his way around one corner of the room onto a stone beam, out over the water.

When he reached the middle of the beam he flung himself on a rope, the bucket hanging from it plunging to the water as he hit the rope hard.

Now he needed to line up with the next rope along and set himself swinging as before, to leap off one rope and grab the next. He continued on from one rope to the next, working his way around the vast cistern. Each rope was lit by a shaft of light from its well mouth high above, and as he reached a rope in the centre of one side, he could see from below that this had no bars like the rest - here was a way up and out of the reservoir.

The Prince did not care to explore any more alcoves at this point, so he moved on up. The rope was suspended on wooden slats, which collapsed into the well even as the Prince vaulted out. Blinking in the sunlight, he barely had time to take in the surroundings of the roof garden in which he found himself before he became menaced by mutant Trolls.

Weary as he was, he defeated them easily, whereon they were replaced by far sterner opposition in the shape of Captains and Blue Guards.

He knew from experience that neither of these could be foxed by his favorite vaulting maneuver; they blocked him every time and simply knocked him flat. Worse, the Captains were able to negate even his own block, by the simple expedient of whirling their swords and whipping his legs from under him. His best defense was to roll rapidly sideways and rush in when they left themselves open. If they came at him in a pack then he felt it fair to turn them to stone, giving himself time to fight back. When the Dagger was exhausted, he launched himself off walls in devastating Rebound Attacks.

He fought his way from the garden into the Palace of Azad once more. At least here was a pool of water. He scooped up refreshment in the seconds he could manage. The fighting was tough but he stuck to it. Too much would be the shame in simply running to the room beyond and leaving his enemies confounded. When he finally managed to fend off the attackers, the Prince was able to receive another Vision, although strangely this seemed not to involve him, but showed Farah alone but tantalizingly close.

He guessed that the roof garden was used for laundering. Bolts of material were suspended from arches all around the balcony. He returned inside. Through a seating area he reached a small circular room. At its centre was a rope suspended over a pool of water containing a doubtless deadly pit of spikes.

The Prince jumped and grabbed tight hold of the rope, then considered which direction to swing. There were two wall switches, and he had already decided that he generally preferred the white ones. He worked out a method where he set himself swinging towards it then leapt just after the rope reached the top of its arc and was set to swing back.

This left him able to slip off onto the wall to trigger the switch, and immediately leap back to catch the rope on its return. Any sooner and he would simply flop lifeless into the watery pit of spikes below. He made the first switch, and was suitably gratified when a drawbridge swung down in response at one side of the room.

That would give him something to swing over onto, and indeed the door it revealed had on it a symbol to match the one on the other wall switch. Experience led him to expect that it was probably on a short timer. He judged the moment, then leapt and triggered the second switch, jumped back and swung and leapt off in one go - landing right in front of the other door, now open for the briefest moment. He rolled expertly under as it slid shut.

Now he was alone at the top of a small flight of steps down to a peaceful covered garden. Leaves drifted in shafts of sunlight. Inevitably, he'd had to use some of the Sand from the Dagger of Time to work out how to open the door, so the Prince made use of a nearby Sand Cloud to replenish it. More switches.

A pull switch was beneath a yellow symbol, which he suspected would give him little time to get to whichever door it opened. When he activated it, the Prince saw he had set in motion a deadly combination of traps, which he had to negotiate even to get there. The destination was a door beyond rotating blades up a flight of steps, and at the sight of statues of water maidens here, it occurred to the Prince that this was the quarters for the Sultan's Harem.

No wonder it was so well protected. He must find the way in! The first step literally was a pressure plate that triggered a stone platform the other side of a spiked swinging log. This called for pause as it came towards him. Having ducked ahead of it, the Prince carried on running to jump over to the platform before the spiked log's return.

Now he needed to time his run over a spike pit while avoiding a scything saw blade, combined with a leap off the wall once across - this to avoid hidden spike trap tiles along the wall edge.

He landed at the foot of a stone staircase with the exit door at the head of it. The first of two rotating sword traps on the stairs was bypassed by the cunning expedient of clambering over the corner of the stair. The Prince ran up to the last trap and tumbled under without pause.

He carried on the roll through the slowly dropping door and found himself coming down carpeted stairs on the other side. This is where he had last seen the Princess in the Vision. "Farah?" he called. "Farah, are you there?" "Hello?" she returned anxiously. "Is that you?" "Here I am!" he assured her. As he raced down the stairs towards the distant voice, Sand Creatures materialized in his way. Despite their relentless number, they gave him scant hindrance; the urgency of his search for the Princess giving edge to his sword.

He was in a private area. All around a central bath were bedchambers, discreetly masked behind heavy drapes. The occupants and their guards and attendants - at least, the remains of their Earthly flesh possessed by the Sands of Time - he had just encountered.

Yet the Prince knew well that there were others, and that these now surely threatened the Princess. He must get to her! "Farah?" he cried out. "I'm here," she called back. "Where are you?" "Stay there," he said. "I'll come to you." In one of the curtained alcoves beside the Vision Cloud he discovered a closed gate bearing a yellow symbol. He needed to find the switch that opened it.

The other alcoves seemed blocked or walled off. A Sand Cloud twinkled nearby, tantalizingly out of reach beyond trellis bars. Behind the drapes nearest to that the Prince at last found an open passage. This led to a small bedchamber, where one wall appeared ready to crumble. He smashed it with his sword, breaking through to a small courtyard featuring classical bas-relief. Another damaged wall was apparent directly ahead.

The next room through it was richly carpeted and scattered with cushions for lounging or other fancies. He had no time to take his rest, but ran on through heavy drapes. Here at last he found the hanging lever that operated the door beside the bath, which he could see even now through the bars. Adjoining the lever room was an alcove containing the Sand Cloud he had seen earlier, and after collecting it the Prince made haste back the way he had come.

As he passed through the little courtyard he saw the Princess through a screen, beset by Blue Guards and other Sand Creatures. "Farah!" He ran desperately for the entrance he'd opened. In his haste to run through, the Prince almost pitched himself into a deep pit where the floor had collapsed. "Wo-oa-oh!" He recognized this passage from the Vision, and executed a swift wall run and back-jump, with a Sand Cloud his reward at the end. There was not much time to refill the Dagger, as again through a screen at the end of the corridor he saw Farah, still desperately holding off the attackers with her Bow. "Farah!" he yelled, "I'm coming!" Here was another wall to smash through, and still another after that.

At last he joined the Princess, gasping from her efforts. "What took you so long?" She had breath enough for impudence! "Oh, just frolicking about the Palace," the Prince replied, mock casual. He fought and talked. "Have you been waiting long?" Keeping healthy distance from her sometimes wayward arrows, the Prince set about the assortment of Sand Creatures that threatened the Princess.

His frustrations were thus released and he almost took pleasure in the relentless combat, striking down each savage blow on a wretched target before drawing their Sand. At last all were gone, and he fell exhausted into the Vision Cloud.

As he came out of his Vision-induced trance state, the Prince heard a distant voice, tender and familiar. "Don't leave me... My love, please don't leave me." He awoke with a start to find his head cradled in Farah's arms. "What did you call me?" he asked. Farah gave an impatient snort and stood up sharply. "It doesn't matter," she said. "The important thing is, I know how we can reach the Tower of Dawn." "Of course, the Hourglass. All right," he relented, "but this time stay with me and pay attention. Can't spend all day chasing after you." According to the Vision before last, after battle around the baths he had seen himself moving some kind of statue, for what purpose he could not tell.

Here now was just such a statue, and perhaps he would find out. Entirely unexpectedly, a crack was revealed. Well?" he asked. "What are you waiting for?" "I'm afraid," she replied coyly. "What if I get into trouble and you have to come chasing after me?" "Please," he said candidly. "Do you mean to say you actually need my help?" she responded. He seemed reluctant to admit it. "Yes." "Oh well," she said brightly, "in that case..." The Princess slid into the small gap and squeezed out the other side. The Prince watched as she scampered to a hanging lever. "The gate is open!" she called.

--

Prince: I SAID I WANTED A FIGHT!!

.. you'll get one next time... remember the library i mentioned earlier? it'll be harder.

Prince: good, i want a challange.

Farah: i'll help, it seems you'll need it don't you?

Prince: who's the one talking? "ohhh don't leave me!"

Farah blushes and in her frustrated embarrasment rage knockes the prince out with her bow

She storms off.

.. you know, you have NOOOO experience with women?

Prince still knocked out cold

well he'll learn. see ya'll!

READ AND REVIEW!!


	10. The Tower of the End, Rewind!

This is the ending of the first game, hope you enjoy this rather..lengthy chapter..

It's been awhile since i've done a chapter this long, and it won't be my last long chapter, so watch out. Things are gonna heat up in this one

Prince: How do you presume that?

Farah hitting him lightly with her bow: We wait and find out!

Prince thinks:...you mean like..thiiiis?

Farah gets kissed before the prince runs:...HEY WAIT A MINUTE!! GET BACK HEEEERE!!

.. wow..guess the prince had it in him after all. i just lost a hundred bucks

ONWARDS!!

--

As he exited the now open gate, the Prince mimicked her under his breath. "I'm afraid... What if I get into trouble?" He was in a small yard, and here was a capstan. It opened a gate nearby. It was evidently easier to leave the Harem than gain entrance. "Over here!" called Farah.

The Prince ran to the now open gate. "There you are," said the Princess playfully. "Are you sure I'm not slowing you down?" The Prince wasn't playing. "All right, all right." He stood for a moment considering her. Had he heard her correctly before? "What?" she asked irritably. "Please don't look at me like that." "Like what?" he replied innocently.

Well, perhaps he had imagined it. He shook himself together and headed along the corridor. Around the corner was a curious device that reflected light from the ceiling back along the corridor.

It gave off a resonant harmonic hum, but served no obvious purpose. Of more concern was the movement that could be seen in the room beyond. "The Hall of Learning," said the Princess solemnly. It was a vast space, lined with bookshelves. And filled with Red and Blue Guards. "We must have come out the wrong side of the baths," she continued. "We'll need to go back through the Royal Palace." "All right then," he agreed. "Let's find a way out." Farah shot an arrow into the room.

Battle was joined. The Prince made the most of the space in the Hall, circling around the Blues and using his Vault Attack on the Reds. He kept one eye on Farah but she showed she could cope if they did not press too close.

He need only break off combat for a second to freeze any that caused her to gasp for help. He spread his own strikes among two or three at once, and in this manner kept all at bay.

He did not have to stray far from a fountain against the base of a plinth at the centre of the Hall. From here he had room to move among the study tables that could usefully block creatures moving towards him. In the intervals between massed assaults, he topped up his health with a quick drink from the fountain.

The attacks seemed relentless; no sooner had he cleared them away than they came again. He lost count of how many he had slain but their thirst for his blood was undiminished. "Where are they coming from?" cried Farah desperately. That he could not answer, but the Prince did not rest until he had sent every last one to a place they belonged.

After quickly dispatching the guards and the trolls who came in later he put away his sword. He looked around to see if there were any quick surviving beasts of the sands. Unfortunately, there were.

A mysterious looking man came down from a ladder from the far end of the library. The prince walked up to him, only to lay eyes on, not that of a man's, but of a possessed man. It was a sand creature he had never seen before, and one he felt could not directly do him harm.

Farah took aim, firing her arrow straight and true. Sadly it was not meant to be, for the creature held out his hand as if to say something, and everything stopped. The beast moved his hand slightly to the side, adn everything ressumed it's movement. The prince had felt the powers of the sand's of time being used before it happened, knowing full well something was not quite right.

The arrow went straight past the creatures face, and farah gasped. "It uses the sand's! be careful!" The prince looked around for a way to save farah, and he did. He saw a mirrored pillar near a bookshelf, blocking what seemed to be a gap of some sort. He raced past the creature and to the mirror. "Farah! you must leave this to me, go!"

As he said that he unvealed a crack. She raced in and the prince closed the pathway, making sure she was safe from harm. he would ask her about what she said later. He turned to face the beast plagued by the sands, but the possessed did not move an inch.

The prince walked up to it and the creature turned and looked at him, peering into the prince's eyes. The prince took out his sword and the dagger, waiting for his chance to strike the monstrosity before him. Using his agility he was upon the Sand Beast, ready to strike his sword into the thing's heart.

His sword was an inch away when he felt the power of the sand's again, and as he struck down he realized, the creature had moved. he backed away, hoping to find some way to strike his opponent, or find a weakness. He thought a moment on his situation. "_This manifestation's ability to use the sand's is amazing. It stopped time itself, or perhaps just slowed it down to make it seem it stopped._"

He decided to strike once more, but ended with the same result. This time when he backed away he found the creature had conjured up two red guards, and two blue guards. He did not have time to waste on them, so he quickly activated his ability to freeze them. He took down each one with a spinning air slash and continued to fight his mind for idea's.

He decided to try and freeze the possessed man, but found the same result his sword found. "_It would seem that this enemy can slow time, allowing himself a breif slip enough to dodge my attacks. I will have to slow time around myself to have a chance to freeze him._" he ran towards the creature quickly, activating his power of delay.

He found the movements of the creature to be slower now, and he might have a chance. He thrust the dagger to the creature, and found the possessed sand monster to quicken faster then the delay, dodging the blow. The prince had one other plan up his sleeve that would end this. He needed the timing to be perfect.

He once again ran at the monster, keeping his finger on the button on the dagger's handle. Once he thrust the dagger of time into the enemy's stomach, he completely slowed time down, the power of haste was his. Just as his dagger was about to touch he saw the creature use haste as well, but foundhimself frozen once more by the dagger being punctured into his body. The prince vaulted over the creature.

Once he did he swung his sword down and cutting the shoulder of the sand beast, coming down he slashed down once more, throwing the enemy to the ground. He used the dagger and collected the sands, surprisingly it filled the dagger's powers to maximum. He sheathed his sword and the dagger and helped farah out of the crack. He went to the vision cloud back at the entance and saw his visions.

The Prince explored the room thoroughly after he saw himself preform acrobatic moves through the library. There were two gates marked with switch symbols. A large one with an orange symbol he assumed was their exit, the other with a yellow symbol appeared to be an ante room containing the relevant switch.

Therefore he would need to find and activate a yellow switch first. There was something else in there too. "Look." exclaimed Farah, "a sword." "It would have to be quite a sword to be worth trading in this one," the Prince remarked. As he peered closely into the ante room, he tried to make out a curious symbol set into its floor.

He had seen that somewhere before. He scaled the large plinth to take stock of the Hall. The Sands of Time had swept through here. There were broken pillars and books lay scattered with odd pages blowing lazily and drifting in the air. He could see balconies and ledges higher up, but he could not climb on any of the bookcases, and it was not possible to jump to any higher point from the plinth, though the top of a nearby arch looked promising, yet just out of reach.

There had to be a way to get up there. He jumped down. "That's an odd symbol on that pillar," remarked Farah. "I wonder what it means?" The Prince recalled the Vision in the Harem, and knew that his task involved directing beams of light in this very room, to what end he could not guess.

He made his way to the curious device they passed on the way in. This proved to be a mirror on a pedestal, and had a handle very like the ones on the capstans he'd been turning. He pointed the beam of light into the Hall, then went to see where it shone. The beam focused on the previous pedestal mirror, but this directed it nowhere useful.

Keeping the beam focused on the mirror, he slid the pedestal away from the wall. "Well i suppose i'll take a look through that crack," noted Farah. "I'll go again!" She slipped easily through and left him with his thoughts. "She said 'My love' - I know she did! I didn't dream it; at least I think I didn't. It's quite natural really. Her kingdom's conquered, she has nothing, no-one to protect her... She needs me, I can see it in the way she looks at me. All I'd have to do is reach out and take her hand, and she'd be mine! ...Why am I talking to myself?" "I'm up here!" the object of his fascination called from the balcony overhead.

Back to the matter in hand. The Prince saw that the beam of light deflected at an angle, into the bay next to it. Here was another mirror pedestal. The Prince dragged this so that the light beam struck onto it, then noticed a darker area upon the floor, about the size of the pedestal base, which seemed likely to be its accustomed spot. He moved the pedestal over it and fancied the humming noise increased.

The light beam now shone all the way back towards the door where they entered. He ran back to see. In this corner stood another mirror pedestal, and again there was a dark spot on the floor where it seemed most obviously to go. As he dragged the mirror over it, the beam struck out once more, and again there was the resonant sound. Yet now there was a problem - the beam crossed over itself and then struck a wall, with no pedestal to deflect it anywhere! The Prince examined the spot where the light struck the wall. It showed every sign of crumbling.

A few blows of his sword and he was through. Here now was another pedestal, and another dark spot on the floor where it seemed to belong. As he heaved the pedestal over it, the light shone directly onto the symbol Farah had noticed mounted on the side of the central plinth. As the beam of light struck it, the symbol lit up with a golden glow. The Princess cried out from her balcony, "You did it!" From the top of the plinth a column ground out and extended upwards.

An iris focused in the domed roof and a thin beam of light struck down, its purpose as yet unknown. This action had an unexpected benefit, for now in the raising of the pillar from the plinth could be seen a way of jumping up to the higher ledges. The Prince wasted no time in climbing up on the plinth again, and this time he was able to climb on the taller pillar, and from there leap over to the arch.

A quick balanced walk and he could leap to a platform directly over the locked gate. From here he ran to one side and found a small platform on top of a pillar, with a ledge leading from it, at the end of which he leapt back and off two flag poles, easily flipping off them to land on a balcony lined with books on shelves.

Farah called across. "There's something odd about this bookcase." She jumped upwards to a hanging lever, and the odd bookcase slid open, revealing a symbol set into the wall. "Look!" she exclaimed. "It's the same symbol that was on the pillar." "Stay there!" he told her. "I'll come to you." But how? The Prince looked around his balcony.

Here was another mirror pedestal, this with a handle. He turned it hopefully. "It's no use moving the mirror," insisted the Princess, "there's no light beam." The Prince seemed irritated. "I can see that." He moved it back. It was no use climbing the ladders either; he had no time to read any of the books. On the pillar at the middle of the balcony was a wall switch. He activated it, and a bookcase slid out into the room.

This was much too tall to reach onto, even from the ladder beside it. As he examined the possibilities, the bookcase slid back in. Evidently on a timer. The only chance was to use the protruding pillar alongside it as a chimney to jump up to the top. Had he seen that in one of the Visions? Sometimes they were unclear.

He activated the switch again, then tried to keep a clear head to run up the pillar and start his rebound jumps, back and forth against the extended bookcase to the top. He gathered himself there, knowing he had just seconds in this elevated position before the bookcase would retract, sending him plunging back down.

He quickly spotted another flat pillar top further along, and ran as fast as he could along the wall towards it. Even as he heard the bookcase slide back behind him, he managed to grab onto the pillar and pull himself on top. Now he saw a ladder hanging from a small platform above.

They never made these ladders long enough. He ran out along the wall once again and leapt out towards the ladder and clung on. Moving himself around so that he could climb up, the Prince heard a familiar but unwelcome slow, regular, snapping sound. Sure enough, as he climbed up, there was a pair of rasping metallic blades waiting to greet him on the platform.

The scissor blades were just out of his way as he bent to collect a Sand Cloud in the corner of this platform, and they did not prevent him running up the wall there, off which he sprang back to grab a beam up above. He balanced along this and even as a section crumbled away, leapt over to another.

He and Farah were not alone in the Hall it seemed, for now a fluttering horde of bats attacked. A few patient slashes did the trick once more, and he dropped down to another wooden platform. From this new platform he looked across two pairs of scything saw blades to a third platform, where stood what seemed to be a glowing lamp.

He timed his run past the blades to inspect it. The object showed similarity with the mirror pedestals but he was unable to move it. His best guess was that it was a lens of some kind. About to return, he noticed that the far wall appeared to be crumbling. A moment's work brought its familiar, though mysterious reward.

By now he did not question the process, but was grateful for the restorative power it gave him. Back on the middle platform, the Prince balance walked out on a masonry beam. Though it collapsed across the middle he was able to jump to reach the central platform.

Here was another rotating pedestal. A light beam entered from the centre of a dome high above, straight down to the pedestal, where it deflected uselessly against a wall. "Where is that glow coming from?" he wondered. More importantly, where could it be directed? Looking carefully around the room, the Prince spotted what appeared to be a mirror pedestal in one corner. Guessing that this should play some part in the purpose of this beam's power, he rotated the pedestal so that the light beam shone to that side. Now to work his way over there.

Another narrow masonry beam led out from the side of the central platform. As he edged along it, one branch crumbled to the floor. Careful! He turned onto the remaining branch and from there jumped over to the safety of a recessed platform. Above his head was a set of wall bars. He jumped and grabbed the lower one and easily rebounded off the wall to catch the one above, from where he swung to a higher beam. As he slapped against it, one end broke off, crumbling and falling to the floor of the Hall, now very far below.

With care, the Prince balanced out to the end of that beam and jumped forward to another. Again, part of it crumbled at the impact of the jump, but the rest stayed firm. As he slid along it towards the safety of a platform, the bats returned, thirsty as ever! He slashed as best he could, and as before, when their number was sufficiently reduced they retired to lick their wounds. The Prince dropped down to a wooden platform.

Here were two more pedestals, already approximately in position. He adjusted the first to catch the beam of light. "Listen to this," came Farah's voice. "'Of what use is reason against the power of love? Love is life; so if you want to live, die in love. Die in love if you want to stay alive.'"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he said mockingly. "I thought you'd like it," she snapped back. "If you want to be useful," he replied, "try finding a book that'll tell us how to get out of here." "This isn't that kind of game." "Game?" he thought to himself. "She thinks this is a game..." He moved the second pedestal to its mark on the floor and once again adjusted slightly to direct the beam of light.

"Try to hit the symbol on the wall!" Farah explained. "What do you think I'm trying to do?" he returned. Women! He hit the right spot and looked across the room, where the light was being angled downwards through the lens he had examined. Directly underneath was the revolving pedestal he had tried earlier, now with the necessary beam of light, ready to be directed to the symbol on the opposite wall.

The Prince eagerly ran out along the wall to drop and traverse some ledges, finally dropping down beside the mirror. He turned the pedestal to shine the beam of light on the symbol where Farah waited. At this, stone platforms slid out from the wall between them. "Stay there!" he repeated. "I'll come to you." He hopped over the balcony rail and jumped backwards to the first platform, then on to the second and across to the last. "Be careful!" Farah called.

He joined her on the balcony. "Now what?" she asked. What indeed. There was nothing to do that she couldn't already have done on that balcony - except that he heard the faint ringing that signified the close presence of a Sand Cloud. He hopped down off the far side of the balcony to retrieve it. "There was one more symbol, do you remember?" Farah suggested. "It was in the main Hall." That was right, behind the closed gate. But how to open it? Looking around, the Prince spotted a rope suspended from the ceiling.

He leapt back to the last platform to jump out and grab it. "Fine, take all the time you need," said Farah pointedly. "I'll read a book." Building momentum, he leapt for another rope hanging alongside. From this, another leap flung him against some crumbling ledges on the far wall.

Losing no time, but showing probably unjustified faith in the solidity of the ledges he was now negotiating, the Prince made his way around a pillar to where he could jump back and grab a suspended ladder. Scaling this, he emerged through a hatch onto a wooden platform, where a glance revealed a crumbling wall... In a small room beyond was another mirror pedestal.

Checking outside on the platform, the Prince noticed a darker area upon the wooden floorboards, identical to the ones he had already found. There was no doubt that this pedestal belonged there. He returned inside, and was about to drag the mirror out when he noticed another crumbling wall beyond it. Sure enough, as he broke this down he uncovered a hanging lever. It didn't escape him that there appeared to be yet another crumbling wall in this room as well. The last room contained a lens, which he had already seen was the method for redirecting the beam of light downwards.

Things were taking shape. He operated the hanging lever and was gratified to hear stone ledges rumble from the wall just outside. Now he could get across to where the first mirror pedestal was and redirect the beam of light. On his way out, he hauled the secret mirror pedestal to its proper place.

The stone ledges made a platform he could cross to where the light beam struck the first mirror. He needed now to direct it back to the new pedestal, and a simple way seemed to be to rearrange the two here that had already done their job. He moved the first one out of the way against the back wall and dragged the second one to replace it. The humming increased as the light struck this mirror and he guided it so that the beam just caught the secret one. In this way the light now entered from the ceiling, deflected off two mirrors and struck the lens hidden inside.

This directed the beam of light to the floor below, and the light was enough to activate the final symbol. "You opened the gate!" declared Farah with undoubted respect. The Prince could hardly contain anticipation as he followed the course of the beam through to the final chamber with the illuminated lens.

He clambered over the ledge here and dropped swiftly down the ledges on the outside. "Be careful!" cried Farah. Finally he dropped down to the now open chamber. Here the light beam shone brilliantly on the last of the three symbols, thereby opening this gate. On the back wall under the orange symbol was a pull switch, which surely opened the main door from the Hall of Learning.

As he approached, the Prince claimed from a carved plinth the magnificent sculpted sword Farah had spotted. He tested its balance, felt its power, and sheathed it in triumph. Quite a sword indeed. With renewed confidence, he activated the pull switch. "Come on!" urged the Princess from the Hall. As fast as he could, the Prince made for the main door.

A familiar and unloved mechanical ticking told him there would be only seconds to reach it before it closed, and he dived underneath just in time. The pair caught their breath on the other side as the heavy door dropped firmly shut behind them. They ran down steps along a tiled corridor, suspended lamps swaying high overhead.

At the foot of more steps at the end could be seen a room patrolled by Red and Blue Guards. The Prince made his way cautiously forward. From the doorway he caught a glimpse of the room beyond. Strange glowing orbs hung from the ceiling very high above, where a platform held the key to opening a door down near where he stood, on a platform in the middle of the room.

It seemed a long way up and, should he fall from this platform, a very long way down. Closing on him now were the angry Sand Creatures. Standing aside from the door to leave Farah a clear shot with her Bow, the Prince struck out at his nearest attacker.

Space on the platform was limited, and he realized that a careless leap could too easily send him over the edge, so he stayed close to the entrance, knowing that the possessed creatures would not leave through it, in order that he might have a moment's respite should he need it.

The Power of Restraint the Dagger gave him proved most useful here, and he reserved it for any Blue that he could not vault past when he became otherwise cornered. Methodically he dealt with each one and with Farah's help managed to prevail. They headed out onto the platform, and to a walkway leading off it.

There did not seem to be a fountain or water of any kind, although after his exertions against the Guards the Prince felt he could sorely use one. He considered the platform they were on. "There should be a way to make this thing go up," he said to Farah. "See if you can find a switch." "What makes you think--?" she replied indignantly. "Never mind..." She ran ahead down the other side of the platform.

As the Prince made his way to the Vision Cloud over there, she slipped through a crack. Shortly afterward the Princess called out. "I found one!" she said. "Shall I pull it?" "Not yet!" he called back. "Wait till I'm on the platform." The Prince ran up the steps to the top once his vision had completed. "Are you on the platform yet?" Farah enquired.

He hurried up a flight of steps to a flat area on top. "Now!" he yelled. With a grinding of stone, the platform began to rise, taking the Prince with it. On a level with the upper balcony ledge, it stopped. The Prince easily jumped the gap between and was rewarded with a Sand Cloud.

Rather worryingly, there still did not appear to be any water to drink. He made the best of it and headed around to where banners swayed lazily on poles protruding from the wall. Above these were lamps, conveniently hung also from poles off the wall. He must remember to thank the palace's interior decorator.

In no time he had used the poles to swing up and turn onto a raised platform. Here was a capstan, on which was a curious globe of bright light, glowing a brilliant blue. As he looked out over the room, the Prince could see the larger globes suspended from the ceiling, which he'd noticed from below.

Each also glowed green, amber or blue. The mechanism of which they were a part seemed to represent planets or a constellation. With the evidence of the Hall of Learning he Sultan showed he was a man of culture, and this place was evidently a scientific Observatory. On a hunch, the Prince turned the capstan behind him.

The pair of blue globes under the ceiling duly cranked and turned, clanking into a changed position in relation to the others. He saw now that the larger of the two globes had a metal rod attached, extending a good distance out. Looking carefully around the room, the Prince noticed that the four sides each appeared to contain a switch or device of some kind, and also that there were four pairs of globes suspended from the ceiling before him.

The elements of an idea began to form. Turning the capstan so that its handle faced into the room, the Prince managed to align the rod on the blue globe towards the centre of the constellation arrangement. Between two broken pillars at the edge of his platform was a bar from which the Prince swung out into the room, using a rod off one of the other globes as an intermediate aid to reach a column that extended downwards at the centre of the room.

The Prince certainly felt as if he were an insignificant presence in the planetary cosmos as he looked around at the huge space in the centre of which he now clung. At least, he couldn't help contemplating the vast distance to the ground below. He trusted his abilities and jumped backwards to the rod he had aligned with the blue capstan, and sprang off that to grab another. Vaulting down, he landed, with a muffled grunt, on another platform.

He should learn to roll as he landed. Here was another capstan, marked by an amber globe this time, and it duly rotated the pair of amber globes out over the Observatory. A little trial and error showed the Prince that moving the handle to face away from the room left its corresponding globes with their rod pointing towards the central column. He swung out towards that column again.

Now he was able to use the rod off the amber globe to swing via another to grab onto a hanging lever. His weight on this caused activation, and the entire constellation began to rotate and align with noisy clanking of gears. The whole locked into place, and now the Prince leaped forward to the wall, striking as he did a prominent wall switch. Stone platforms below rumbled out from the wall, just in time for him to land on.

The Prince sensed they would shortly retract, and wasted little time using them to run and land beside the capstan he had first turned. The globes were in their proper position now, so he had no need to touch the capstan again, but turned once more to the bar to swing out among the planets yet again. This time he struck out in a different direction from the central column, arriving on the fourth platform via a hanging lever.

This activated the exit below. "The gate's open!" called Farah from beside it. There seemed only one way down for the Prince from here. He looked into an opening where thick cables extended. He jumped forward with alacrity and slid expertly down. "Here I come!" he cried in exhilaration. "Hah-ha-aaaah!" At the bottom was the lever Farah had used to raise the platform, and he ran to join her now beside the open gate. "Come on!" she beckoned.

He went through the doorway. "Look," she exclaimed, "a crack." "Wait!" he warned her. "Let's see where this corridor goes..." At the corner close by, spiky poles and slashing blades hissed into action. "All right," he decided. "You can take the crack." She slipped through with an airy: "See you soon."

In a moment she appeared on a short bridge over a closed gate at the end of the corridor where the Prince now waited, apprehensively pondering the array of vicious traps before him. "I'm up here!" she called. "Try pulling that lever," he shouted. Farah jumped up to a hanging lever and the gate just beneath her slid open.

For the Prince to reach it would be a challenge. He turned first to the twin spiky poles behind him and spotted the fountain beyond. Was nothing ever simple? He risked a dash across between the spinning blades to fortify himself, before returning with renewed energy for the dash down the corridor.

In one fluid move, he ran forward and rolled under slashing blades, again and again and again and again, to pause just short of a swinging spiked log. Judging the moment, he ducked underneath as it swooped toward him, and dashed and jumped to grab the edge of a wide and doubtless deadly spike pit.

Just ahead of the spiked beam's return he pulled up and ran for the open gate. Here was another corridor, and more sweeping blades. The Princess appeared on a ledge high above. "Do you think I can jump it?" she asked. "Go on, try." he urged. "What's the worst that can happen?" Though he appreciated that she had not his acrobatic ability, the Prince couldn't help feeling that the Princess had an easier time of things.

Even so he called out encouragement as she landed. "There you go." He noted before him a row of spiked tile traps. As he ran over the wall above them, their vicious blades sprouted out. Up ahead was a closed gate showing a symbol that matched one on the floor just beside him - with the added complication that this lay directly in the path of the still sweeping blades.

Again with expert timing, the Prince ran over the floor switch and up the wall at the very moment the blades had swept past, jumping back over them as they returned, to dash straight for the gate that was now open. It slid shut just behind him.

Yet another ornate corridor, suspended oil lamps slowly swaying, slots in the walls where blades would surely be, a closed gate at the far end with a corresponding pull switch at this.

A tock-tock-tocking was all the warning he needed that the switch was on a short timer. The Princess appeared overhead once again. She hopped over a gap in a little bridge.

He called out to her, "I'll meet you on the other side of that gate." "Careful!" she cautioned. "You be careful!" he shot back. Once more he dived under the blades - tumble, tumble, tumble - keeping close to the floor so that the slicing sword blades passed just overhead.

It meant sticking to the wall on one side to avoid a pile of rubble as he went but that hardly hindered him. In moments he rolled gratefully through the gate. Here was a courtyard filled with angry Blue Captains swishing their swords and growling aggressively. Overhead flapped large black Sand Birds... Out of the frying pan into the fire!

Was the Princess safe? "Here I am!" called Farah nearby, "I can't open the gate." She would be out of danger there at least. Sword in hand, the Prince entered the courtyard arena to do battle. Here was a small stone bridge across pools of water. Broken arches and a low wall surrounded it.

He had barely time to snatch a drink at the pool before the Sand Creatures came to investigate. The Captains, even in their horribly mutated state, were expert swordsmen.

Something inside him granted that respect. As much as he reviled them and was wary of their terrible strength, there was too an obligation that for his own sense of worth as a soldier he should fight with honor, not simply brute force. As the demons advanced, the Prince put up his guard and matched them step for step and blow for blow.

He soon found the weakness in their attack. While he could parry individual blows with his sword indefinitely, the Captains needed power for their sweeping attacks. As each paused to wind up their blade, the Prince dashed forward and slashed as they left themselves open.

Though he may catch the occasional blow, should he keep up the pressure they would fall back and fold. It seemed to work best if he turned suddenly to face in and catch them unawares, since despite their size they were remarkably quick to block. As much he showed patience, they seemed in haste and began to impede each other in the blind rage to destroy him.

Ground strokes could knock him temporarily off his feet, but also on occasion each other, and as each fell to the ground he leapt in to snatch away their Sand.

These would not materialize again. In the manner of a samurai the Prince stalked each target bravely, matching them on each strike and taking advantage of his athleticism to evade the swinging attacks. If he kept his guard as they moved to strike, then made his own stoke, the result was a mighty clang of steel as he blocked and unleashed his counter-strike.

By these methods, one by one this group of Sand Creatures was vanquished. He couldn't help thinking that it might have been simpler to run past the lot of them, climb up the ladder in the corner and just leave them to it. The courtyard contained three gates; that which he had entered, one through which he expected to leave, and another behind which Farah waited patiently.

He could appreciate now in a moment of calm how tranquil this place must once have been. He noticed statues of water maidens pouring their life-giving fluid from vases into the pool. Perhaps symbolically, one had been shattered by the violence so recently visited on this place. Collecting his thoughts he climbed the ladder in the corner.

From the top he could jump back to a fragment of archway and balance on top. "Be careful," urged the Princess. An apt moment to warn him, for here were the Sand Birds he had quite forgot, now preparing their attack. He jumped to a wider section of arch and drew his sword.

His earlier experience with the Sand Birds allowed him to judge the moment to strike as just after hearing their squawk of attack. They swooped in only to meet the length of his sword, and each collapsed in a shrieking ball of feathers and flame. With peace to move onward, he jumped to grab a rope, suspended from a thick wooden beam uncomfortably like a gibbet. "What are you doing?" called the Princess irritably.

He seemed to be wasting time. "I don't know," he replied, "I'm working it out as I go." Using the rope to swing up, the Prince managed to haul on top of another sturdy wooden beam. Between these on the wall was the proud symbol of the Palace of Azad. From the wooden beam the Prince swung across a pole to land on a covered bridge nearby.

Two Sand Birds flapped and waited above. Here was a barred gate showing a yellow symbol, and a corridor beyond, but no sign of a switch anywhere near. He could see a flag pole sticking out from the wall on the other side of the bridge, and judged that he could swing up to it if he ran out to a further wooden beam and turned to face it from there.

In one fluid movement, the Prince duly swung to the upper part of the bridge and immediately drew his sword to attack the Sand Birds perched on top. Caught unawares, it took just a stroke of his blade to send the creatures, like the others before, collapsing in flames.

Looking ahead, the Prince saw yet another wooden beam jutting from the wall over the courtyard. He was quite high above the ground now, and chose not to look down as he ran to it before leaping out to another hanging rope. Aligning himself carefully, he swung to another rope and thence to a flat stone roof on a projecting section of the palace.

From here it was a simple matter to run along the wall and drop down to a platform, then drop again to a rampart. Before him in an otherwise empty turret room was a capstan. This took but a moment to rotate, whereon he heard a familiar cry. "I'm out!" as Farah emerged from the opened gateway and skipped across the courtyard.

The capstan opened every door marked with a yellow symbol in the area. It seemed also to have activated traps nearby, as rotating blades began to swish viciously. The Prince could see one open door ahead along the ramparts, yet between them was a nasty looking pit of spikes.

A little too wide to jump with comfort, he judged. Instead he hopped over the low retaining wall and shimmied past the pit on the other side, musing as he went. "I could marry her!" he reasoned. "After all, she is a Maharajah's daughter - a conquered one, but still, her blood is royal. Besides, what better way to tame her insolence? It's not so bad for a woman to have a little spirit. It's a challenge!" He hopped back over and entered the doorway.

This was the corridor he'd noticed shortly before, and that other gate had opened along with this. There was nothing out there, of course, so he turned the other way and observed there the swishing blades he'd activated with the capstan. No doubt he would have to jump across to where they guarded the only steps down.

Somewhere below he heard the scuttling of scarabs. With a jump and grab, the Prince hung off that part of the staircase just out of the topmost blade's reach. From here it was a simple matter to drop to the stone floor and set about the demonic winged beetles.

From a darkened corner he gratefully scooped up a Sand Cloud. Just outside the room the Princess joined him with a relieved cry. "There you are!" "Come on," he replied. "It can't be much further." He ran ahead up stone steps, to be greeted by yet more Scarabs.

The Prince drew his sword wearily. "Not again!" He whirled through the possessed insects, cracking their shells with one blow from his sword then consigning them to dust with another. He soon cleared the corridor.

Thin light glowed through loopholes in the walls. "Watch out for spikes!" he called over his shoulder as he ran above a treacherous pit to clear more scarabs. He waited as Farah hopped gracefully across another spike pit to join him and together they went up more steps until they were outside once more.

Here were ramparts partly wrecked by the dark forces unleashed on the Palace of Azad. A walkway below contained a terrace garden. This part of the palace featured many domes and minarets. The highest of these seemed to reach to the clouds. "Look," said Farah. "That's the bridge to the Tower of Dawn." She seemed to know a lot about the place. The Prince ran to descend the broken rampart to the gardens below, leaving Farah by the gate. "Wait for me," she called, but he thought he'd better scout ahead. Everything seemed too quiet.

Sure enough, as he ran on to a small pond, Sand Creatures suddenly appeared. These were quite easily dealt with, being armed only with short chopping blades, but he had to move quickly between them to be sure he did not become subject to assault from behind while his attention was elsewhere.

Their commander, a Blue Captain, appeared presently, joined shortly by others, but by now the Prince was well experienced and able to block their lunging blows. Indeed, each Captain appeared content to leave the attack to the dim-witted minions with their slow chopping blades, and seemed only to cause trouble for each other as they swung their swords wildly.

Even two were easy to defend against, and if he only kept himself beside a tree they could not even knock him off his feet, being as liable to send each other to the ground should they try. He always had the Dagger to freeze any particularly troublesome foe.

By these means in no time it was over, and he used the waters of the pool to refresh himself. At either end of the terrace garden were Sand Clouds to retrieve, then the Prince made his way back up to Farah, still safely out of harm's way on the rampart above. Here he received his next disturbing Vision, of a place of terror, of cages and bars, of himself at the mercy of inhuman hands.

The Prince and Princess made their way over the shattered ramparts. A heavy gate barred their way. Farah crawled beneath. "I'll see if I can find a way down." The Prince heard her call from somewhere inside. "I can't open the gate," she said, "but there's another one on the other side." "Stay there," he replied. "I'll climb around." To one side of the gate was a metal pole and a jetty beyond.

He swung out and pulled up onto it. He used a ledge to move carefully around the corner, trying not to look at the drop below, and sprang off another jetty to land beside the gate on the other side. Farah looked out, unable to open this one either. Who designed this palace? "There's a staircase," she shouted as she ran off inside.

"I'll meet you in the courtyard down below." "Be careful on the stairs," he warned. Advice he could heed. On the ramparts before him was another Sand Cloud. As he made his way gladly toward it, the ramparts began to crumble under his feet! He desperately tried to turn back and grab for safety, but it was too late.

The stone ran away like sand through the fingers, and he plunged into the depths below, masonry cracking and tumbling all around. He fell heavily, and lay prone, battered by falling rubble.

As he recovered, he looked around and beheld a ghastly place of terror: bars, spikes, stone walls and iron cages, bloodstains and flaming brands; and low animal noises from the Sand Creatures pacing far below. "A prison! In my father's palace was a prison much like this," he thought ruefully. "I had never set foot inside. Now, here I was, myself a prisoner seeking an escape." He tore the last ragged remnants of his tunic from his scratched and bloody chest, a strip binding one wounded arm.

He was on a stone walkway high above the prison floor. A ladder behind him led down to a metal platform. Prominent on the wall was a switch - a sheer drop beneath! Taking up his courage, the Prince ran out and activated it, to his relief finding at once that it triggered a grill sliding from beneath one of the prison cages to land on.

This he used as a platform to run to the switch on the wall beyond, and onto another beyond that, working his way swiftly around the room in this manner. He heard each grill retract barely as he passed, so without pause he continued over each switch, until another metal platform appeared from below, clanking up to meet him just as he ran down off the last one. This platform cranked down a flight. Another wall switch, more cages.

The Prince had an easy rhythm now, and made his way back around the room to another clanking platform, this dropping him down one more flight. The room at this level was wider, and the angle necessitated that as he ran over each wall switch, the Prince had to leap out to run across each metal grill now revealed.

Once more without pause - and with this little extra effort - the Prince made his way all around the room to leap, then swing off an alarming caged device (which broke away from the wall even as he leapt off it) to a ladder on the wall. Descending this, the Prince made his way back around the room, now making use of each hanging pole to swing to the grills as they appeared. Finally he landed on another ladder, to slide gratefully to the dungeon floor.

At once Sand Creatures, sharp hooks in hand, menaced him - ready to treat this unwise intruder as they had no doubt treated many poor souls in this place in life. He felt no remorse as he set about each one, consigning them to their own eternal damnation.

Among these were giant brutes, swinging heavy hammers like grotesque circus strongmen. They were as easy to despatch using vaulted attacks as the rest.

Now that the dungeon had been cleared of demons, the Prince searched about. His thoughts were still on the Princess. "All right, I've decided - I will marry her. I'll tell her the first chance I get," he mused. "It's time to put an end to all this fencing about and not saying what one really means. We've made it this far; it's foolish to deny what we both feel!" The walls of the room were lined with prison cells, bars blasted away.

On the wall of one empty cell the Prince found a graffito of a hanged man, together with days marked off, precursor perhaps to the miserable fate of the wretch who had once occupied it. A deep pit was open at the centre of the room. He could not see the bottom; last resting place perhaps for some who had passed through here. Bones and ghastly blood stains were evident around sluices on the cold stone floor.

He noted a prominent yellow symbol on a large door, which he could only hope, would lead him from this dreadful place. In the guard's alcove beyond the very last cell he was relieved to find the corresponding floor switch. Clearing the surrounding impediments with his sword, the Prince stepped onto the switch.

Indeed the door slid open, but as he ran to make his exit, it slid as firmly shut. He needed a weighted object to hold down the switch. Against one wall was a metal cage containing the last remains of another forgotten soul. This man could be of use in death as he may never have been in life.

The Prince dragged the cage all the way over to the switch. At last the way was clear. Beyond the door a brick-lined corridor, and the Prince noticed one wall appeared ready to collapse... Disturbingly, he observed that beneath the grill under his feet was a river of blood.

On rounding the corner he wondered if his own would not soon mingle with it - slicing with deadly, metronomic precision, a pair of sword blades cycled from the wall, preventing access to the barred gate beyond. Opposite these remorseless blades was a wall switch with a symbol matching the one on the gate.

He knew what he must do. Timing his moment exactly, the Prince waited for the blades to nearly touch him as they swept forward, and in the split second they retracted to start their cycle again, he ran forward and up the wall to activate the switch. Even as he did this, the blades scythed beneath him, but he was able to jump back off the switch and run for the open door just a fraction before they returned.

Now he found himself in a place even more horrific than the last. "A torture chamber. It was the first time I had seen such devices at close range. Close enough to touch. Where were the men whose trade it had been to apply the question; to extract the answer their king sought - if indeed there was one.

In the end they had met the same fate as their victims. Guards and prisoners made equal by the Sands of Time." Scattered about the room were the instruments of torture: iron maidens - mercifully unoccupied - racks, chains, and a brazier of fiery coals. Here too was a pair of pull switches.

As he tried these, the Prince found each activated a sliding section to the wall, which too swiftly moved back as the seconds ticked away. It seemed to the Prince that he could operate these switches one after the other to bring the corresponding section of wall towards the other at the same time.

Perhaps if he were then swift enough he could ascend the gap as a chimney before they moved back into place and left him plunging to his death. Perhaps. With as much concentration as he could gather, the Prince activated the first pull switch and then ran to the other, allowing himself no margin of error in alignment as each precious second ticked by.

He sprinted to the gap he'd created and ran upwards, hopping back and forth to reach the top, whereon he pulled up and ran upwards once more, and back off the wall to grab safely on a wooden beam. Pulling up on this, he found that he had somehow released bats from the depths below, and readied himself with his sword. He had fought hard to get to this point, and was ill-inclined to cede it to flying rats!

Having scattered the persistent pests, the Prince edged forward along the beam. He could see no alternative to a heart-stopping leap across to another beam, a little further down in front of him. He made it - just - and looked about. Ahead two wall sections formed a wide chimney.

It was clearly too wide for him to ascend. Either side of the beam were prominent wall switches. In the expectation that one was as good as the other, the Prince leapt sideways and triggered one switch, leaping at once to land back on the beam.

One section of wall ahead had slid forward, and as with the switches on the floor below, the Prince knew that the other would most likely slide to meet it once activated by the switch on the corresponding side. He leapt quickly to this, then sprang back to grab and pull onto the beam once again.

Now the gap in front was sufficiently narrow for him to dash forward and ascend between the sections, certain as he did so that time would be short before they slid back. With effort, he hauled himself on top of one section, then ran up the wall there and jumped back to find himself, as so often before, swinging from a pole.

It was a matter of routine to swing up to the next and finally to a broad wooden beam, where he hauled up. Perhaps it was not so very broad. He edged out once more. He could barely see the torture chamber floor far below. Up here also were rows of torture devices lining the walls either side. Slung across the centre of the room was a metal bar, from which dangled chains and iron cages.

Using this pole, the Prince swung out and across to the other side, where he landed beside a Sand Cloud. He was in an alcove, light streaming through barred windows in tiers above, precious little of it reaching to that desperate place below. A curious row of spikes was aligned on the wall above his head, and others at intervals up the wall either side.

Opposite each was a wall switch, all but the lowest out of reach. The Prince ran up to activate this first switch, and the row of spikes proved to be the leading edge of a metal grill, which slid from the wall then all too swiftly returned. He ran up over the switch again, then as the grill slid forward, jumped back, using the grill to run up over the next highest switch. This activated a grill in the opposite wall, and he could thus leap back onto that to run up over the switch above that section, even as the one beneath shot back into place.

In this manner, the Prince negotiated each section of metal grill and each switch until he landed, a half-dozen later, on a wooden beam. Thankfully, bats did not assail him up here. Working his way slowly to the end, he leapt now to a ladder, suspended from a domed section very high in the ceiling of the chamber.

He climbed swiftly to the top, cobwebs billowed slowly in the moaning wind from the opening above. The ladder reached only halfway to the top, and as the Prince jumped backwards from it to grab a metal pole, the ladder broke away and crashed to the depths below.

He swung from the pole to another section of ladder, and was similarly able to use this to ascend further to a second pole. As before, the ladder broke away the moment he leapt from it. He swung to grab a third section, thankfully more secure, and clambered up. He emerged into daylight he thought he might never see again. "Over here!" A familiar voice beckoned.

The opening from which he had emerged was at the centre of a large courtyard, like the rest of the Palace of Azad, now somewhat ruined. Farah was under imminent attack by a hammer-wielding Sand Creature, and as the Prince ran to help, others materialized.

He set about them in the same old style, and soon came under attack from Blue Captains as well. Whilst Farah tried her best to stun them with arrows, the Prince soon found that his presence close by was liable to put her at too much risk of collateral damage.

While he was able to withstand the occasional misdirected arrow from her, "Sorry!" in which she called as one of those arrows punctured his shoulder, he knew that she was not up to a sustained attack by one or more of the Sand Creatures. He moved the fight away from the lower level and ascended the stone staircase behind them.

Here, to his relief, was a basin of water, and he snatched a drink when he could. As the battle raged back and forth across this area, the Prince accidentally triggered a floor switch set into decorative tiles there. He had no time to investigate its effect but marked the spot for later.

Drawing the last of the Sand Creatures even further up another flight of steps, the Prince discovered a Sand Cloud. With the Dagger of Time full of Sand he did not hold back on its power. He listened for any plea for assistance from Farah, but felt happier that he was bearing the brunt of the attack.

In this struggle there was no time for the subtlety he had displayed against the Blue Captains in the Hall of Learning courtyard; he hacked them down as they came. Soon enough he was able to sheath his sword and head to the Vision Cloud. The Vision was troubling. He had become grateful for the manner they unerringly revealed to him the way ahead, and in this one came a hint that he might soon call on the Power of Haste.

Yet here too, unmistakably: Farah stealing from him the Dagger of Time! The Prince came awake with a start. He lay on a stone bench, Farah cradling his head. He seemed not to know where he was, and jumped up and reached instinctively for the Dagger. Finding it safe, he held it close behind him as Farah spoke. "It's all right, it's me," she assured him as she caressed his face. "It's me." Her words seemed to settle him but still he held the Dagger away.

Farah turned and pointed. "Look," she said. "At last we're here: The Tower of Dawn." A large gate bearing an orange symbol barred the way to it. Putting his troubled thoughts aside, the Prince noted the corresponding switch high on the wall between the steps, clearly out of reach.

He would need something to climb up on, although the courtyard seemed completely bare. He thought he could see a crate on one of two high platforms at opposite corners, but it was impossible to reach either. The Prince headed back up to the raised level with the water basin.

He ran on to the floor switch and heard a rumble down in the courtyard. A stone block had raised up, and the Prince lost no time getting on top. He could see one wooden platform just ahead, and ran quickly along the wall to grab onto it. The block rumbled back into the ground behind him. Above this wooden platform was a wall switch. Running up over this activated another stone block on the opposite side of the courtyard.

The Prince dropped down and quickly ran over. From the top of that block he made it across to the second wooden platform, where he could now bundle the wooden crate to the ground. He hauled it across the courtyard and pushed it under the orange switch. It proved just the right height to allow him to reach it. "The Tower of Dawn!" said Farah as she ran ahead through the newly raised gate.

The Prince jumped down to join her. They were on a wide stone bridge leading to the invitingly open door of the tower. As they approached, Sand Birds took languid flight then circled dangerously near. Although he knew Farah was useful against them with her Bow, and he himself well able to block their swooping attacks, the Prince saw no advantage to fighting the Sand Birds again, and simply ran hard for the open door.

Farah came close behind. Here was another Sand Cloud to be retrieved; the Dagger of Time was now fully charged. The Prince led the way into the tower. They twisted along a corridor, ornately decorated though in need of repair. He noticed one section of wall that seemed already patched.

It looked about the right size to conceal a doorway, so he struck it a mighty blow with his sword. He broke through with ease. "I love it when you do that," said Farah softly. "Come with me," he urged. "Please."

"No," she replied gently. "You go." As before, the effect of the restorative left him drained and temporarily disorientated. "Farah," he asked, as if surprised at his return to her side. "How long have I been gone?" "Gone?" She was puzzled. "What are you talking about?" "Never mind." The wall behind him appeared unbroken.

Were the trips to the Magic Fountain merely an hallucination? Yet he certainly felt their benefit. With renewed energy he pressed on. Farah raced past him into the room at the end of the corridor. "Be careful!" The Prince cautioned. "Of what?" her voice echoed. "Not everything is a trap, you know." The room was a tall cylinder of pillars and arches.

The Princess ran eagerly forward to a lighted platform, spread with exquisite rugs and exotic furnishings, fine trellis-work all around. On either side were basins of water, and the Prince noticed a wall switch close behind where Farah stood. There didn't appear to be a corresponding door.

He ran forward to join Farah on the platform. At this, a lever clunked somewhere close by and machinery ground into life. The platform was part of a gigantic elevator, which now began to rise smoothly. "That was easy!" commented the Princess. "Too easy," he grimly replied. Something was wrong, he could sense it.

He drew his sword and ran forward to check the area below, expressing doubt in her assurance, "You know, not everything is a trap." The irony was apparent as at that moment a Sand Creature appeared with them on the platform - and another, and another! All 'Strongmen' and as at least as easily countered as before. Less so the Blue Captain who appeared soon after, with Blue Guards as reinforcements.

On the enclosed space of the elevator, the Prince made use of his Rebound Attack to free up some room. He had to keep one eye on Farah, valiantly firing arrows as best she could from her position on the platform, as well as trying to keep up his guard and avoid the sweeping attacks of the Captains, and the vicious hooked strokes of Blue Guards.

Should one or other seem determined to force their attentions on the Princess, he moved up to lure the attacker away, or broke off temporarily to turn that one to stone to give Farah a moment's respite. "Where are they coming from?" she cried desperately. They seemed inexhaustible.

It was as much as the Prince could do simply to fend each group off between snatches of water from either fountain when he could. "Behind you!" she warned as another monster loomed. As fast as he knocked one down and drew its Sand, another appeared.

This battle was proving hard for them both. When he had fully gathered the capacity of the Dagger, and at a moment when it seemed the creatures had the Princess at their mercy and he engaged too heavily, the Prince drew on the Power of Haste once more. With time frozen, he whirled among the Sand Creatures, clearing every one at a stroke.

For the short time the effect lasted he was invincible, and when it wore off theattackers had been all but annihilated. At last he retrieved Sand from the final demon and all was calm again. He ran to Farah, mercifully unscathed on the platform. He looked upward, and observed the curious effect of the architecture as the platform rose.

It seemed that every time the elevator approached the top tier, another level appeared, and another, and another, seemingly never-ending. It was impossible to say how far they had risen. Eventually the elevator ground to a halt. "It's stopped," Farah observed. They had reached the upper limit of the room.

Light shone through leaded arched windows. Suspended from the domed ceiling under which they now rested was a hanging lever, most likely reached from the wall switch he had noted earlier. "Try that lever," urged Farah. Her voice echoed under the dome.

As he swung from the lever a section of wall revealed a small alcove. The Princess ran over to investigate. "Come on," she called. "Hurry!" The Prince dropped down from the lever and ran to join her in the alcove. This soon proved to be a miniature elevator, enough for the two of them.

They ascended rapidly amid the grinding of stone machinery. "The Hourglass is nearby," said the Prince. "I can feel it." "Feel it?" Farah wondered. "How?" He was unsure himself. "I can't explain it." Yet it proved to be true as they arrived at their destination. They were atop the Tower of Dawn, which held the fabulous wealth of the Sultan of Azad.

Richly decorated, and now partly ruined, the circular room was littered with piles of coins and trinkets, treasure chests, precious objects of tableware and ornament, all of shining gold. Yet the Prince found himself staring at something more precious than these. "Your eyes," Farah murmured, "they're green." "Are they?" That she should notice! He felt... "I'm sorry, was I staring?"

This time she spoke gently. "It's all right." At the centre of the tower stood an octagonal platform, a pillar at each point. The Hourglass had been set on top in between, a brilliant golden glow emanating from within. The Prince entered the nearby Vision Cloud. The vortex drew him upwards. The hallucinatory vision told how he could climb on to the Hourglass; and it showed that same troubling image of Farah laying claim to his Dagger!

Putting such thoughts from his mind, the Prince ran up to the top of the tower, the way lined in scattered piles of gold coins flowing from open chests. Faint swirls of Sand blew about his feet in sudden gusts. "There's no-one here," he said quietly. He reached the platform and inspected the strange troublesome object at its centre.

The light within was intense, and it had about it a low, threatening resonance. "Now get on top of the Hourglass," said Farah. He could not climb directly up. There was a ledge running around the top of the room that according to the Vision might serve as a springboard. "Hurry!" urged the Princess.

The ledge ran only part of the way around the room. It would have been impossible for any man not so agile as the Prince but he found it little effort to run out along the walls to a series of pillar tops, where at the last he ran across an arched window and jumped out towards the Hourglass.

Silhouetted against shafts of light through the stained glass behind him, the Prince seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, though it was but a moment until he reached his goal. The Prince climbed onto the wide flat top of the Hourglass, his face lit by its golden glow. "You did it!" said Farah. "Take the Dagger - strike it into the centre of the dome!" A small glass dome covered the top of the Hourglass.

The Prince ran the Dagger against it, was about to plunge it in... Then narrowed his eyes and snatched it back. "My father's army sacked your palace; captured you as a slave!"

"What?" "You have every reason to hate me," he announced. "What are you talking about?" "Now you want me to trust you?" Doubt showed in his eyes.

"Go on!" Farah insisted, hands wide. "There's no time!" She gave a start as the dark figure of the Vizier appeared behind her. He recited a sinister incantation, and with a wave of his hand the head of his Staff glowed.

The Vizier directed it towards the Hourglass. "Farah," he roared:"FAAAAR-AAAH!" A mighty wind rose in an instant and blew the Prince from the top of the Hourglass, flinging him hard against a pillar, where he struggled to hold on.

Farah wailed as she was blown off her feet, and clung desperately to a column as the wind raged against her. The Vizier approached undisturbed by the maelstrom. His tone was low and menacing. "Give-me-the-Dagger!" Farah held on by her fingertips, clutching a crack in a fluted column.

As the wind tore her free she was blown past the Prince, who gave up his hold on the Dagger to grab her hand. The Dagger lodged in stone. The Vizier grinned evilly as he reached for it "The Dagger!" cried Farah. "He must not get the Dagger!" The Prince released his grasp on the pillar, and was immediately blown away by the wind.

He snatched the Dagger as he flew past, a moment before the Vizier got a hand to it. Still struggling to keep hold of each other, the pair were whirled into darkness. "I had faced my enemy," the Prince said grimly. "I had looked into his eyes and I had lost...everything." The two plunged through a hole rent in the floor of the Sultan's treasure vault.

The Prince landed hard, yet rose to catch the falling Princess in his arms. She jumped off, annoyed. "A tomb," said the Prince solemnly, looking around. He jumped down from the stone sarcophagus on which he stood to join Farah, her arms folded in displeasure. "You were there! The Dagger was in your hand," she scolded. "Why did you hesitate?" The Prince could give no answer.

He absently dusted his trousers. Farah turned away, arms folded once more. "You think you're cleverer than everybody but you're just like the rest of them," she said in disgust. "Those soldiers! All they can do is fight, destroy." She unfolded her arms again and went to him.

Aware of the cost of his doubt, he sat with head in hands. "Why did I trust you?" she wondered, then spoke quietly as she lifted his chin to look into his eyes. "Why didn't you trust me?" There was sudden darkness.

They moved in alarm. "Ow!" said the Princess. "Sorry," the quick reply. Farah spoke with sudden fear, "Where are you?" "I'm right here," he reassured her. "Hold my hand," she begged. "Don't let go."

There was a long silence but for their breathing. "I didn't mean what I said," Farah offered. "No," the Prince replied, "you're right. All that's happened is my doing. I wanted honor and glory... I brought this on us." Dust swirled in the faint traces of light.

Farah spoke quietly. "You are brave and good. If this tomb is to be ours, at least the Dagger will be buried with us. And..." she wanted to say it, "we are together." The Prince breathed heavily. "What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing." "You're trembling." "I just don't like closed spaces." He changed the subject, "There must be some way out of here." In the darkness he continued looking. "When I was small my mother taught me a secret word," said Farah. "She said that when I was afraid, all I had to do was speak that word and a magic door would open. I've never told that to anybody."

"I can see why. It's the most childish thing I've ever heard of." Off-handedly he asked, "What was the word?" "Kakolukia." He intoned it roundly: "Ka-ko-lu-kia." There was the clink of stone grinding against stone. "You did that -- didn't you? ...Farah?" Sudden light broke the gloom. The Prince looked around.

Farah was gone! Beside him was a tomb with its stone lid cracked open. Without hesitation the Prince hopped over and dropped down. He was in a rough underground passage of flagstones and wooden rafters set in dirt walls. He looked above and saw daylight through the open tomb.

There was no means to climb back out. He was at the top of a passage and there was only one way to go. Down. As he ran forward, the dirt passage gave way to richly decorated stone lit by a trail of golden lamps.

Gossamer drapes caressed his face as he ran over shallow steps which began to spiral, as if he were descending a tower. He ran and ran, down and down, further with each step but no deviation in the soon dizzying spiral, round and around with no end in sight, the stone steps and the silken drapes and the softly glowing lights always the same, repeating over and over, down and around, down and around, sending his head into a spin.

The passage seemed never ending: on and on it went, down, down, a hundred steps, two hundred, he ran, and ran, and ran. Even as he thought he had descended to madness, the passage straightened at last and the Prince saw faint light through a doorway ahead. "Hello? Farah, hello?" He emerged into a strange circular room of doorways and arches, arranged in two tiers of lavish decoration.

Shafts of light streamed down from tiny holes in the domed ceiling. Motes drifted, sheer silk drapes caught each breath of wind. "Where are you?" he called. "Oh, isn't it beautiful?" Farah's voice came dreamlike, yet she was nowhere to be seen.

At the middle of the room was a shallow pool, with a statue of a delicate dancing maiden on a low plinth at its centre. "Isn't what beautiful?" asked the Prince. "Where are you?" He ran all around the gallery of doorways, with nothing to indicate which might contain his errant companion.

She seemed unconcerned at his frantic, fruitless search. "If only we could stay here..." Then a sharp accusation, "What are you doing?" "I'm looking for you!" he insisted.

Farah called back cryptically, "I'm right here." The Prince decided to try one of the doorways. In a few short steps, he found himself emerging from the very same doorway at which he just arrived. "What the--?" he gasped. He tried another passage. Once again he emerged straight back on the balcony at the door he first entered. "How in the--?" he exclaimed.

What was happening? "Farah, where are you? Farah..?" She seemed unconcerned, murmuring: "If only we could stay here." He might have to, if he couldn't find a way to leave.

She simply must be through one of these doors... The Prince tried another and emerged back onto the room but this time at least from a door other than where he began. Yet still it made no sense. "OK," he decided, "there must be a reason for this." "Shall we take a bath?" purred Farah seductively. "What are you talking about? Where are you?" After mention of a bath, this time as he passed a door he noticed the sound of lightly splashed water.

Perhaps she really was taking a bath, and perhaps through this very door? It seemed no worse than any of the others. It was no better; she was not there and he had returned yet again to the infernal room. Again, through a different door. "Where are you?" he tried.

The dreamy reply: "Take me in your arms." Why was she tormenting him? "I don't see you! Where are you?"

"Here I am!" Yet she was not. The Prince continued around the room, passing door after open door until he heard once again the trickle of water.

He duly entered that doorway. "Farah, where are you?" In a few steps he emerged somehow at the level of the balcony above! "What the--? All right, this is getting ridiculous." Here was a succession of doorways identical to the ones in the tier below. He set off around this balcony too, calling out as he went, "Farah?"

"Just take me in your arms..." she sighed. "Who are you talking to?" he asked, utterly perplexed. As he passed another doorway the sound of splashed water came again. He took the hint and ran in, where just as on the floor below he somehow emerged after only a step or two back onto that same balcony.

It seemed impossible yet here he was. He must simply keep trying doors where he heard the dripping of water and hope one or other led from this room and not straight back to it. "I've been waiting so long." Her voice echoed the longing. "Can you hear me?" he wondered. "Why do you act so distant?" She was surely mocking him.

Why did SHE act so strange? Was this all a dream? "Farah?" he repeated. "Can you hear me?" "Don't you want to touch me?" Her words tormented him. As he entered yet another doorway, even on the sound of water, the Prince had almost given up hope.

But here at last, he came upon the baths. "Farah?" It was an underground cavern suffused in a deep pinkish glow. From a wide sunken bath, Farah came to the surface, naked and unashamed. Lanterns of warm candlelight floated upon the water beside her. "It's beautiful," her voice echoed softly.

He knelt at the side. "Come on," she beckoned. His senses overwhelmed, the Prince removed his weapons and left them to one side. She smiled to herself as he slipped in beside her, then brushed wet hair seductively from her face, before turning away to swim through golden light, which glittered over her naked body.

The Prince swam eagerly after her as she emerged at one side among soft cushions and velvet drapes. He came to her, murmuring, "Kakolukia..." Their fingers touched, tentatively at first. The Prince caressed her. Their faces close, Farah's dark eyes closed as he leaned to kiss her willing lips. -- He was alone.

Cold hard stone beneath him. The Prince raised himself upright and stretched as he tried to collect his thoughts. "Was it real, that magical cavern? If it was a dream, then it was a dream we both shared," he declared. "I know it was!" He reached for his weapons.

The Dagger and his sword were gone! His face hardened. On a shelf beneath a statue he saw a pendant... "Farah?" She had left it for him. Which meant -- ? "Oh no!" He pocketed the pendant, now his only protection against the Sands. He was in some kind of crypt or mausoleum, his resting place a carved stone tomb.

Faint daylight came from above and lit candles glowed in stone alcoves either side of the room. Everywhere was dust and cobwebs. Through a doorway, flanked by statues of kneeling bulls, he could see a brilliant beam of light. Here too appeared Blue Guards - and he defenseless!

The Prince ran for the door and managed to duck past the growling Sand Creatures. He continued along the corridor where the light beam was directed. There seemed no other way out. Mercifully, the Sand Creatures did not follow. Through open doors, the Prince came into a circular room of pillars set with lanterns.

The light beam was presently directed through two of these by a familiar mirror on a pedestal. The room was open on two sides where it looked out high above cliffs. Flaming bowls hung from every pillar to light it. On one side were heavy wooden doors, very much shut and without any kind of a symbol to indicate that they might somehow be opened.

At the centre of the room was a raised stone platform, giving the appearance of an altar. On a plinth upon it rested a sword, which he sorely needed now. Yet it was surrounded by pulsating rings of light. "Oh, no," moaned the Prince. As he suspected, if he tried to approach, he was repelled by powerful energy that radiated from the rings.

Prominently engraved on one side of this altar was the familiar symbol of the Palace of Azad. Perhaps the light beam could be directed onto it, in the manner of those in the Hall of Learning? The Prince examined the floor very carefully. Yes, here again were darker areas on the patterned tiles where a pedestal might habitually stand.

There were only four pedestals in the room, and their movement over the floor was restricted to two on either side. This would take only a moment to work out. He first dragged one nearest the entrance, and positioned it where he could see a dark stain on the floor.

With a little adjustment he directed the beam onto it and over to the far end of the room, where it struck one of the lanterns. This sent the beam across to another lantern and from there back into the room. The Prince was sure he was on the right track. Now he swapped the other two pedestals over and placed them on their respective darkened tiles. With a little more adjustment the light beam finally struck the symbol on the altar.

It glowed bright yellow. The pulsing rings of the force field atop the stone plinth began to fade, and at last the Prince could step up to claim his prize. The sword was heavy and strong, with a massive hooked blade bearing an Arabic inscription. The Prince took the weight of it and struck the ground in some satisfaction. He turned back to the crypt to teach those Blue Guards some manners.

The Vision gave him the direction he needed. The way ahead lay through the wooden door back in the altar room. There was too a sobering reminder that he must now proceed with care - without the Dagger of Time, any mistake would be terminal. One blow from his new sword and the heavy wooden door shattered into pieces. The Prince emerged on a balcony high on the palace walls.

Wind whistled through the battlements. On a platform above him, the Prince could see many Sand Creatures pacing, waiting - and on a ledge above them he saw a fast fleeing figure. "FA-RAH!" It was too late.

She had gone. The Prince hurriedly ran forward to a series of poles, which he used to swing up onto the platform, where he set about the many Sand Creatures barring his way. In a fury, he whirled among them, moving swiftly to each and not letting any catch him in sight.

A single blow from his new sword was enough to snuff out each Sand Creature one after the other! He was standing on top of a small stone building built out from the sheer face of a cliff. The platform was its roof, with a low balustrade around, open at either side. On the floor where he stood was a wooden trapdoor, but no way to open it from above.

A Vision Cloud had formed. The Prince climbed the wall in front of him in the direction he had seen Farah heading. Plaster dust fell at every handhold as he made his way up. Here was a column that he shimmied up, thus able to jump back to another, then off that to a narrow beam.

He looked around carefully and spotted a metal bar protruding nearby, and leaped out to grab it. He hung over an abyss. Shuffling sideways as far as he could, he aligned with a narrow beam, which he could just make out jutting towards him.

He swung out to land on it, and in so doing his flying feet dislodged a dozen angry bats, which gathered to descend quickly on him. Trying to keep his balance, the Prince slashed with patience when they flew close around. He had already learned how much he had come to depend on the Dagger of Time, and a reckless approach would not do here.

Gaining peace, he edged forward along the beam until his toe struck a wooden strut. With great daring, the Prince jumped out for a tall pillar beside him. He grabbed thankfully and slid to solid ground. At least, even though he was on a narrow platform still high above the ground, comparatively so! Through a doorway he became momentarily stumped; there seemed nowhere to go on the other side.

He could see a ledge just above to his right, but it proved out of reach. The wall opposite formed a convenient chimney however, and it needed only a small display of acrobatics after as much as he had already performed. Once on the ledge, he ran up the wall and jumped back to the next. Mere child's play; perhaps this was a game after all. He felt things become serious as he pulled up onto the remnants of a bridge.

In evidence were many Sand Creatures - and there among them was the Princess! "Farah, come back!" he yelled. He watched as she fled into a narrow crack in the palace walls. At least the Sand Creatures could not follow her through. How had she fought them off? "She must be using the Dagger!" he realized.

"Farah, be careful," he called after her. "Don't use up all the Sand!" He ran forward to join battle with the demons. The bridge crumbled behind him; there was no going back. He whirled and leapt among the possessed creatures, not resting for a moment and dividing his attacks among them. As they left themselves open, one touch from his sword turned each to dust, and in a short time the area was clear.

He was standing on the remnants of the entrance to the Tower of Dawn. Massive gates, which even his mighty sword could not dent, barred easy access. According to the Vision, he would have to work hard to get within. Get within he must. He began with a run up to a bar, then a few jumps up using stone jetties to a ledge, and from there, using broken pillars, the Prince sprang up through a blasted hole to the ramparts.

As he made his way around a narrow ledge, he was assailed yet again by bats, with the same weary outcome. He had to keep concentration though, as a slip could send him plunging with no second chance. He made his way around the outside of a turret, to find a narrow chimney that lent him the opportunity for more athletic upward leaping. On a higher ledge the bats resumed their troublesome attack, and the Prince took care to judge the moment to strike so that his blade claimed two or three at once, a few slashes after which the bats broke off as before.

He now edged his way very carefully along one of a pair of extremely precarious stone jetties, Azad banners fluttering gently beneath. Taking his courage, the Prince leapt for the other, and barely clung on as he landed with a grunt. Miraculously, the jetty held and he edged his way back to a ledge on the other side of the turret. He balanced along an iron trellis, to drop down to a bar beneath.

Shimmying along, he saw that he was now high above the entrance where he had started. He swung out to rebound off the palace wall onto another trellis above. He hastened to the wall alongside, where he clung for support as the bats assailed him once more.

There followed another bold leap over the gap between two more stone jetties. His feet caught in one of the enormous banners of Azad green and gold, causing it to billow and flutter but it did not hinder him unduly as he hauled himself up. Thick cloud flowed like a river below and the Prince edged cautiously around another narrow ledge to another narrow chimney.

He was much higher this time of course, but he trusted his rhythm on each jump to ascend safely and grab on to a ledge. From here the way was clear, if perilous. By a series of crumbling ledges the Prince worked his way back around the turret. At length he found a series of flag poles, which he used acrobatically to fly, one after the other, to the ruined turret opposite, where he held on to a crack and shimmied along, dislodged dust and the threat of crumbling stonework at every move.

With this effort he worked his way around and found he could go no further. Unable to climb up, the only option was a bold leap backwards, to use the wall opposite as a chimney, this time not to ascend but go down! For the first leap he aligned himself back to the wall, thereafter relying on his momentum alone to rebound each time, dropping a little at each effort. He knew not to rush the jumps, since this would cause him to fumble and fall, but adopted a slow steady rhythm, and with a dozen leaps he was safely down.

Here was the entrance to the turret, and a floor switch within. Of the timed variety, naturally. It opened the gate in a turret opposite, and the Prince lost no time in running over the crumbling rampart to get there. Inside was a ladder.

He climbed up, but found that it reached only a short height. Ominously there were broken sections of the ladder upon the floor below. He heard then the flutter of tiny wings, and drew his sword ready for what would surely be more bats, possessed of the Sands and still intent on his blood.

As he waited, poised to strike, the door below slid firmly shut, leaving him for better or worse in the company of the miniature winged demons. As usual, a few brief slashes and he was left alone once again. He was now able to spring backwards off the ladder to grab hold of another on the opposite wall. This soon proved to suffer the same deficiency in height, forcing him to jump back to the first, yet at least now higher up.

In this manner he ascended to the top of the tower. Here on a trellised rampart was a reception committee of assorted Sand Creatures. As before his powerful new Sword made short work of them, if he only kept moving, turning from one to the other with no time for them to square up to him.

He sheathed his weapon with a look of grim satisfaction. Restoring such health as he had lost at a fountain conveniently close to where he mounted the rampart, the Prince found his way blocked by rubble. Returning towards the entrance and climbing where he could, he scaled the broken ramparts and sighted a Vision Cloud just beneath.

The way forward ended in a sheer drop. Returning to mount the blocks of the rampart once again, the Prince noticed a pillar on top, from which he was certain he could jump to a series of metal poles nearby. He made the first jump off the pillar, then swung to the second pole. As he flew from that to a bar further along, the pole cracked and crumbled, then broke away, leaving a jagged gap in the tower wall.

The Prince shimmied around the bar to come to face this, then swung over to grab hold. It held firm and he pulled up, to walk along a ledge that had been formed in the gap. Behind him was an iron frame that he felt confident in jumping to, but he needed a little more height.

He jumped up to grab another ledge above. Unable to pull himself any further up on this, the Prince released his tentative hold and sprang back to grab hold of the iron structure, which he now saw was an ornate frame for a canopy, the underside of which he had just used as a climbing frame.

Cloud swirled and eddied around the palace walls below. He tried to keep a clear head as he balanced along the metal beam to the comparative safety of the remnants of a balcony. From this balcony, he ran along the wall to another, then another, and so on around the outside of the tower to which he was trying to gain entrance. He reached another fragment of balcony and could go no further.

He turned to an ornate gable strung between the tower and a turret built off of it. On the edge of this gable, the Prince balanced to the base of the turret. This had been badly damaged by the ravaging Sands, and part of the wall had collapsed. The rest of the turret above formed a chimney.

With a little effort, the Prince scaled the turret walls, jumping side to side up the inside. He emerged higher than he had yet been, wind whistling and clouds still scudding by. The top of the turret was open to the elements, its domed roof presumably blasted away. An adjoining turret seemed undamaged, and here in a decorative basin the Prince found water to restore such energies as he had lost.

Another run along a wall brought him to a similar pair of turrets, where at the first he was attacked by bats. He whirled and slashed and easily scattered them. A careful walk along a slender beam brought him to the second turret, similarly fractured but showing the rich decoration that must once have made it the work of craftsmen.

He did not deign to fight the bats when they resumed their annoying infestation here, but ran instead towards the tower walls and out to another broken balcony whereon they departed for good.

This balcony was rather more severely damaged, and led nowhere. The Prince noticed the shattered remnant of a column hanging within jumping distance off one wall further along. It would be his boldest run yet.

He ran to the very edge of the tower wall and then leapt out to grab hold of the column. Clinging for life he shimmied up before jumping back to land on the verdigris dome of a turret roof. He could see the Vision Cloud he had just left, very far below. He saw then that he had worked his way all around the tower.

Up here was another pillar to climb, and another canopy rail to jump back to. A simple swing and he pulled up to solid ground. A solid platform, anyway. He found himself now very high indeed.

Clouds swirled beneath him and he looked out over the misty towers of the palace below. From the edge of the balcony he ran out and leapt back off the wall to grasp a fragment of hanging ladder. He was almost there, he could feel it! Finding himself now inside a narrow tower, the Prince was able to spring back to grab a central column.

Behind him a gap, through which he could see at last inside the Tower of Dawn. As he leapt into the gap, the Prince heard a clash of steel... This between a Sand Creature's scimitar and the Prince's own sword, in the keen but untutored hands of the Princess.

She had the blade raised in desperation as the brute pressed down towards her throat. The creature knocked her back, then slashed down on her as she narrowly rolled aside. "Farah!" the Prince yelled. The growling creature advanced on her, helpless on the floor.

The Prince pulled up into the room and ran fast to launch his furious attack, consigning first one, then another hellish creation to dust with a single blow and a thrust from his sword. Farah received a swipe from the mindless hulk that assailed her, the blow sweeping her into a hole in the floor. She clung to an edge. "Farah!" She looked up, lost her grip, screamed as she struck down with the Dagger, making a purchase in the stone at the edge of the hole.

She dangled above the floor of the Hourglass chamber. The Prince slashed her assailant to a flash of dust, saw the Dagger lose its hold in the stone. He leaped to grab it, holding the shocked Farah at arm's length, teeth gritted as blood from his tightened fist ran down the Dagger's blade. "Aghhh!" the cry of anger and frustration as the strength drained from his body. Farah looked up and saw the hopeless desperation.

She made a decision. The Princess looked up at the Prince with her dark eyes shining. "Kakolukia," she whispered. With sudden dread, he looked at her. "Farah, no!" She let go of the Dagger and drifted to the floor far below. All was black. Farah lay on the floor of the treasure vault. Peaceful, still beautiful. Dead.

The anguished Prince reached in hope for the Dagger of Time. He could still prevent this! It was empty. Behind him the Sand Creatures returned and made their advance. The Prince clenched his fist, eyes narrowed as he turned to meet them. With force born out of rage the Prince took revenge.

He moved swiftly, turning to strike suddenly as each creature lumbered after him. He used everything he had learned: slashing and moving quickly; keeping his guard and making opportune counters; rolling aside under their crashing swords; launching Rebound Attacks off walls; using pillars to spring over their heads and make a devastating slash as he landed.

He moved slowly backwards, tempting them into a pack, where one would surely make a furious slashing attack, sending his fellows to the ground, at which the Prince could leap in to retrieve their Sand. His Dagger had not enough energy to apply all its special powers, but such Sand as he collected served well enough for the Power of Revival when he became overwhelmed.

He was able to snatch water at either of two basins around the room as he went, circling around and dealing with each creature as patience would allow. He blocked their challenge and made swift reply, destroying each on a single blow and slowly and surely turning the tide against their number.

When he snuffed out the last demon a Vision Cloud formed. He sank wearily into it. Here now was the Palace of Azad, desolate, devastated. No living person in the Reception Hall where he had last seen his father, nor the Menagerie, or on the ruined bridges; no sign of life, and scarcely any movement but the pale morning sun now glittering on the lotus pond, and the laundered cloth blowing gently on an empty terrace beside the well.

The Prince came to and looked around. He put a hand to his aching head, his heart heavy. "Bravely I have fought and slain my enemies. Honor and glory are mine. But though I fight until the desert sands themselves were red with blood, I could not bring back the dead." He was alone in the Tower of Dawn.

Farah lay in a pool of golden light. The Prince fell to his knees beside her and wept. "No, no!" He held her face in his hands, gently placed her pendant at her side.

Tenderly he stroked her face as he sank his head to hers. "The girl," hissed a voice, "is unimportant." The Vizier, cause of all. The Prince leapt to his feet and flew at him with a furious cry, clutching the Vizier's Staff and forcing it to the old man's throat. "Give me the Dagger," urged the gasping traitor, "and I will give you power!" The Prince gave a growl of indifference and stumbled to his feet, slumping against a wall.

The Vizier continued his entreaty: "Eternal life will be yours." "Live forever, when those I loved are dead and I to blame?" said the Prince in emptiness. He held up the Dagger of Time. "No," with sudden ferocity: "I choose death!" He leapt for the Hourglass.

The gasping Vizier screamed a threat but the Prince cared not, and with an anguished cry of rage plunged the Dagger into it. "No-o-oo!" The Vizier shied and covered his head as a storm of light burst forth.

The Sands raged about the chamber, flowing swiftly back into the Hourglass. Time was a blur as all that had happened became undone: the Prince's struggle with the Vizier, Farah's death, their time in the bath, his battles with the Sand Creatures, presenting to his father the Dagger of Time, the siege on the Maharajah's palace... Images confused and overlapping, flashing ever faster as the Sands swept back into the Hourglass, which suddenly sealed at once. -- Storm clouds gather, thunder rolls.

A heavy raindrop splashes to the ground. A Princess wakes with a start. Somewhere a Prince wakes too, the Dagger of Time in his hand. He is in his tent, sentries guarding the encampment, alert for the coming attack. The Prince rises and goes out into the night, aware of the gathering storm.

The first raindrop falls; he wipes it dismissively from his eye. Or the trace of a tear? Running now through monsoon forest, the urgency of his mission drives him on through the rain. He arrives breathless outside the palace of the Maharajah. Within, the Princess steps from her bed, cold marble beneath her feet.

She searches apprehensively around, her anxious breath short. She senses another's presence. A hand falls on her shoulder - she gasps! "Do not be afraid." The Prince takes the Dagger from his side and offers it to her. "This belongs to you." "The Dagger of Time!" she gasps. "But it is locked away within my father's treasure vault. How--?"

"Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction," the young man raises his finger as he moves towards her. "But I have seen the face of time and I can tell you - they are wrong!" He speaks intensely: "Time is an ocean in a storm." The Princess stands uncertain but unafraid. "You may wonder who I am and why I say this," the young man continues. "Sit down, and I will tell you a tale like none that you have ever heard..." The night passed as he tells all.

In thin light and to the sound of morning birds he explains his intent. "...and that is why I have come: to warn you and your father to arrest this treacherous Vizier before he betrays you and brings ruin on us all." Farah kneels with rapt attention. "His signal is a flaming arrow shot into the air. Prevent him, and my father's army will know the traitor has been unmasked. They will turn back!"

"A wild tale indeed," comes a voice. The Vizier appears as if from nowhere. "I have a simpler version," with oiled menace. "A Persian soldier lusting for glory entered the chambers of the Maharajah's daughter, and was slain - by me!" He turns to his master's charge. "Princess, for your own safety I suggest you flee." The Prince draws his sword and comes on guard, ready to meet the challenge.

The Vizier takes up his Staff and twirls it about his body. To the Prince's surprise, the Vizier does not offer combat, but withdraws in an unearthly movement, gliding rapidly away from the Prince to a position by the terrace windows. He makes a bold promise: "I will handle this intruder!" The Vizier brandishes his Staff and imperiously voices a loud incantation in an unknown tongue.

The Prince tries to silence him but the Vizier plants the Staff firmly before him and is protected by a powerful force, which the Prince cannot penetrate. The Vizier becomes immersed in a bright light as he recites more strange words, at which an Avatar appears - an exact but ungodly replica of the Vizier himself. Finding his attack on the Vizier fruitless, the Prince turns to face the menace of the new arrival.

Farah takes refuge behind a large vase, powerless to intervene. "What sorcery is this?" she cries. "Stop this at once!" "My lady, he came here to abduct you. Surely you do not believe him?" The Prince rolls and tumbles out of reach of the Avatar's swinging Staff. "He will betray you!" he insists. "All will happen as I have foretold." He takes an opportunity to dive in and strike the Avatar. "How inventive!" the Vizier sneers.

"Do not forget, he is a Persian soldier." The Prince continues his explanation as he circles the room, wary of the Avatar's strikes. "What I have told you is no story," he says firmly. "It happened -- I mean, it WILL happen!"

The Dagger of Time proves useless against this enemy. The Prince must rely on his own abilities. He notices that as he strikes the Avatar it gives off a charge of red light, obviously sustaining damage.

The Prince keeps on the move, tumbling out of reach of sudden swipes and strikes, sure to regain his feet quickly as he is knocked down an overhead smash from the Avatar being certain to follow. He blocks but the Avatar is quick indeed. Better to keep moving, charging in at every chance when the fiendish creation leaves itself open.

The Prince is gratified to see red flashes each time his sword hits home. Eventually the Summoned One reels back, and the Prince moves in then to slash hard, delivering a succession of blows that cause it to shrivel suddenly and disappear without any trace. "Your exertions are most amusing," mocks the Vizier.

He raises his Staff again and repeats the incantation, with the same ball of light engulfing him and the same ungodly apparition gliding toward the Prince. "Let him be brought before my father," warns the Princess. "He will judge." It brings no response. The Prince tumbles and blocks as before, trying to find weakness in the Avatar's attack. "Vizier," repeats Farah, "I have commanded you to stop! Do you disobey?"

"I have taken orders long enough from a senile old fool and a sniveling brat!" he snaps, then addresses the Prince. "Your father was a great warrior in his youth, or so he would have the world believe. A pity his son does not take after him," his voice a sneer. "Then again, perhaps father and son are alike? It would appear that both share a taste for easy plunder."

"You waste your breath," retorts the Prince, "What little you possess." The Vizier breathes with difficulty. "You perceive my malady," he gasps painfully. "Consumption has robbed me of the youth that you so heedlessly squander." The Prince uses his youthful agility to circle around, still dodging the constant swipes from the Avatar's Staff.

When he sees an opening, he dashes in to strike, then rolls aside as the counter strike from the Avatar follows. He applies Vault Attacks, finding his agility confounds his enemy. This proves the right technique at last, and he applies it again and again, slashing each time and knowing he is hitting home when the Avatar gives off flashes of red light.

With each hit he can see the Avatar slow. He delivers the final blow and this demon, as the first, shrivels in a flash and is gone. "Did you really think you could defeat me?" seethes the Vizier.

He bends forward, coughing furiously. "Careful," taunts the Prince, "don't tire yourself." The Vizier bangs his Staff once more, loudly uttering his evil spell. A third Avatar materializes. Though his health had become somewhat affected and no water is to hand in the Princess's bedchamber, the Prince shows he has the measure of the apparitions.

He wastes no time in getting close and using the Vault Attack, just as he had on his transformed father so long ago. With every leap he strikes home, and a dozen blows later this Avatar also is defeated and similarly vanishes. It proves the last the fading powers of the ailing Vizier can summon.

The Prince moves to the sick old man. He has no pity for the wretch now coughing and gasping, clutching his precious Staff as support. One downward slash and an uppercut from the Prince sends the Vizier flying through the screen doors, crashing out onto the verandah. His Staff is knocked from his grasp. The Vizier gropes on hands and knees, reaching for the Staff.

As the Prince comes through the doors, he uses it to swipe the young warrior off his feet. "And so it ends," the Vizier pants breathlessly. "How will the Maharajah feel if he finds his only daughter slain by the son of his enemy?" The Prince springs to his feet.

The voice of the Vizier oozes venom. "Do you have any last words you wish me to communicate to the Princess, before I kill her? Words of love perhaps?" This mocking insult is too much. The Prince leaps in and serves on the Vizier what he had promised from the start: he plunges the Dagger into his foul and treacherous heart.

The Vizier collapses to the ground, wheezing, "I could have been...immortal." He coughs his last. The Prince sheathes his sword for good. Farah emerges from the safety of her room. "Then it's true," she says quietly, "he was a traitor!" "Take this." The Prince hands her the Dagger.

"Return it to your father's treasure vault. Guard it well." "I owe you thanks," the Princess replies. Then with furrowed brow, "But why did you invent such a fantastic story! Do you think me a child, that I would believe such nonsense?" The Prince takes her suddenly about her waist and kisses her.

The Princess shrinks back, throwing him off. "I said I owe you thanks," with pursed lips. "You presume too much!" The Prince looks at her, wide-eyed in confusion. He takes up the Dagger and taps it. In a blur, he is holding her again, they kiss, and are apart.

"...such a fantastic story!" the Princess says. "Do you think me a child, that I would believe such nonsense?" The Prince thumbs the dagger thoughtfully. "You're right. It was just a story." He gives her the Dagger, holding it for a long moment. A last look and he turns away.

With a nimble step he vaults over the balcony and grabs hold of a palm. "Wait!" calls the Princess. "I don't even know your name?" The Prince pauses to consider. He looks up with the trace of a smile. "Just call me... Kakolukia." The Princess gasps. She turns to look over the balcony, but the Prince has gone.

--

Well well well...end of part one out of three of the story...NO WORRIES! THE TRILOGY MUST GO ON!!

Prince: and if it does not?

then be ready to be dead...prince...

Prince: YIKES!

Farah comes around the corner: AHA!

Prince runs away, princess close following.


	11. New Journey, Storm's Mercy

Hey all! how's it going!!

This is the next addition to the story and the game as well. it's a pretty good part as well so be careful with how you veiw it.

Prince: last time you gave me a great battle and a wonderful ending...do it again!!

Yeah right!! XD this is a time skip so...-Hits prince in head til he ages to this part of story-

aaand he'll be out till the end of this chapter !

time to go...ONWARDS!!

--

Breathless footsteps run to the blur of an ancient walled city at first light of dawn. Towers and rooftops glow as if on fire. The sound of running and labored gasping for breath echoes down narrow twisting streets. An ominous growl rises behind. A hooded figure frantically flees along deserted alleys, under a network of rafters and lantern-lit arches.

He vaults a fallen beam, looks back, quickly right, then left down a maze of alleys, and takes flight once more. Suddenly in his path a rabid dog, slavering jaws bared. The greater danger comes behind. He dives past, and with a yelp the wretched cur is swept aside by the black rushing cloud that boils in his wake.

The young man swings to high rafters, searching for escape. Whatever pursues him has awesome power, it splinters the heavy beams like matchwood. He jumps to the ground and runs once more through the twisting cobbled streets. His feet pound wildly. From the relentless shadow of destruction tentacles reach out.

He jumps scattered pots, smashed moments after by the dark force rushing ever closer. He stumbles to a dead end, throws his shoulder to a heavy door, again and again, and hammers a fist uselessly. Cornered, he turns, draws swords and stands tall to face the ravening beast. In his mind's eye, a flash of events that brought him to this.

A sailing ship plows through a storm, its bow plunges to the waves. Lightning flickers. Rain whips the cloaked figure of the Prince of Persia. "This storm shows us no mercy," he shouts above the wind. "We shall respond in kind! Reef the mainsail." His men struggle up the rigging.

He puts a hand to the shoulder of the mate. "Bring us closer to the wind." Above the storm he senses something at the edge of the dark. A hail of flaming grappling irons shaft out of the night to hook on to the rails. From the deck of a looming pirate ship, savage creatures haul ropes.

The Prince's ship is dragged remorselessly towards that of the Pirates. He shouts courage to his men. "Ready your weapons!" He shrugs off his cloak and holds sword aloft. Men slide from the rigging. Fireballs crash down on their ship. Sailors rush to the deck, swords in hand. A horde of pirate raiders confront them. The Prince stares open-mouthed. Framed in lightning the Pirates howl from their ship - not men but hellish creatures that brandish hideous weapons and utter low animal cries.

As they draw nearer an Amulet the Prince wears on his breastplate glows as if in warning. He clasps it tight. The horned demons growl, fangs bared and red eyes burning with hate. They heave the ropes that drag the helpless ship ever closer. With no regard for the icy lash of rain and salt spray, from below decks on the massive attack vessel a near naked female figure steps slowly to her stage.

Pirates haul ropes. The ships crash together. The creatures roar in triumph, then fall to silence, turn and part as the figure appears and walks among them. A voluptuous young woman, no more than a girl but sure of her power. Cropped black hair, black lips, black boots to her thighs, barely attired in strips of black leather. She carries a sword, moves among her minions, caresses one and another as a pet.

On the other ship the men are awed, the Prince transfixed. The cruel smile vanishes from her lips. She snarls a command. "Kill him." The creatures swarm aboard. One sailor falls to a sword thrust, another has throat cut and on a growl of triumph from his attacker is thrown overboard.

With a challenging cry, the defiant Prince vaults a burning rail, sword in hand. Two of the pirate creatures circle. He throws up a block as they strike together, then returns swiftly to cut the first down with a volley of blows. It collapses to a cloud of foul yellow dust and vanishes with a shriek. Though they bleed these are not even half-human creations. He has no time to consider, the other is on him.

He vaults nimbly over and tosses it to the sea. All around are the sounds of the struggle and clash of steel. Explosions rock the blood-soaked deck as the Prince advances and cuts down another Pirate. He moves about the open, fighting, blocking, and holding back one and another until he can slash with his sword.

He tries different moves and learns swiftly. He executes on each attacker whichever combination of sword strike seems best, with the same shriek and the same crumple to blood and yellow dust at its end. Temporarily blocked by burning debris, an explosion clears the way and he fights on. A missile strikes the crows nest high above; a luckless sailor is blown out, and falls with a cry.

His body smashes through the wooden deck, tumbling the Prince down the shattered gap to the hold. The bilges are awash. He takes a scoop of water to clear his head and gropes through the darkened hold. A few of his men fight a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with Pirates at the bow.

Too late to save them, the Prince finishes their attackers with a furious charge and a flying swing about a deck prop. Though inhuman, these creatures it seems are sentient beings, as one offers a dying curse: "You have made yourself many enemies this day." Their number will surely become fewer as they make themselves known.

He moves on below the other side of the ship, likewise flooded. A harpoon bursts through timbers, narrowly missing his head, and a second and third close beside. Water sprays in. He runs on, and is confronted by another Pirate raider. About to strike, the Prince is knocked hard as the attacking ship crashes into his, splintering the hold and crushing the hapless Pirate.

Yet more water rushes in. His ship is surely doomed. The Prince moves on up a short flight of stairs, but is trapped by burning debris. Dead crewmen lie at every corner. He spots a rope stretched taut, grasps tight and cuts it with his sword. He is hoist aloft, springing with its release beyond the deck above, flying through the air, where he is launched into the soft folds of a billowing sail, tattered and licked by flames.

With his blade to slow the fall, the Prince slides to a spar and drops onto the open deck. He looks to the bridge. The girl in black stands imperious. She gazes down on him without emotion. A sailor rushes behind her, sword raised. She flicks one casual blade and cuts him down at a stroke.

On the open deck below, creatures surround the Prince. "Let's finish him," says one. "Help me with this." As many as there are they prove no match for the Prince's soon practiced blade. "You'll have to do better than that," he advises.

"I will not allow you to stand in my way." Anger rises as he sees the bodies of his men all around. Fiery arrows streak down on a deck already ablaze. He leaps over a massive grappling iron to make his way to the bridge and the one responsible for the destruction of his ship.

With a furious cry he clears a last Pirate from the gangway to the bridge and turns to confront the she-devil there. Her near naked figure steps out above. "You will never reach our shores alive," she warns. "For your sake, you'd better hope I don't."

He races up on the bridge to challenge her. "Flee," she warns, "while it's still an option." His only thought is for revenge, and their swords clash. She proves a much better fighter than any of her minions. The Prince is forced to block her furious attack again and again.

She probes with her sword, tempting him to drop his guard but then launches a flurry of strokes, which hit him with a shock. "You call yourself a master swordsman?" He has experience enough to spot weakness. Her training is excellent but a little too rigid. Her attacks take a pattern.

He blocks patiently then awaits a characteristic upward lunge with both blades - devastating should he prove unwary - followed always by a vicious single swipe.

He chooses this moment to counter, and manages at least one telling strike that sends her gasping. Recovery is swift. He blocks and repeats. At a moment he finds the fight going his way she strikes fast, slashing across his face. Though his reflexes are sharp he cannot take the sting from the blow and is cut deep, eyebrow to cheek.

He reels back. "You bitch!" He flies at her in fury, and strikes hard. She recovers. They circle again. The girl lowers her sword in contempt as he retreats to catch his breath, slaps her hip with a blade, and taunts him. "You don't honestly believe you can defeat me?" He sets in to try again.

They lock swords. He summons all his energy to force her back by degrees. "I grow tired of this," he says. "Is that the best you have to offer?" her reply. "Tell me when you're going to be ready to fight for real." Space on the bridge is limited, and the Prince moves cautiously about, holds his block and waits his chance to strike always at the same point in her rigid assault, though she now moves swiftly aside from his attack.

At a moment he stumbles, she stamps with a heel, and stands waiting for him to regain his feet. Their swords lock a second time. "It seems the Empress overestimated your abilities." The Prince is momentarily distracted. "The Empress?" How could she know his intent?

The girl takes swift advantage of his lapse in concentration. She knocks the weapon from his hand, clutches him by the throat and delivers a stunning blow, kicks him brutally to the head, and casts him contemptuously aside overboard. He sinks to unconsciousness, her black-lipped sneer burned on his mind.

"The Island of Time..." The Prince drifts in the current. Swirled in the depths of the ocean the memory of a voice comes to him. "...the place where the Sands were created. The place from which the Maharajah stole the Hourglass." In a tent in the desert wilderness the Prince takes counsel of a wise Old Man.

"And what if I could reach this island?" the Prince asks. "They say the Maharajah found portals there," the Old Man goes on. "Where one could pass backwards through time." He reaches among his utensils with sightless eyes. "Back through time?" the Prince wonders. "To the birthplace of the Sands..." The wizened face of the bearded Old Man frowns with foreboding as the Prince speaks.

"Something terrible happened when our army traveled to the Maharajah's palace." In a flash of years before, the Prince recalls plunging the Dagger of Time into a mysterious hourglass. "You found the Sands of Time?" "Worse! I opened them." His mind is scarred with the memory of terrible demon ogres unleashed at the bidding of an evil Vizier when he was tricked into opening the hourglass and the Sands were released.

"Whosoever shall open the Sands must die," recites the Old Man. "I was forced to kill those I fought beside. Those I had loved." "But now an unstoppable beast chases you." The Old Man unstops a flask. "For the first time in my life," the Prince looks to his mentor. "I am afraid."

The wise mystic has no words of comfort. "And you will die." The Prince tries to explain. "I used the Sands themselves to reverse time, making it as if the Hourglass was never opened." In so doing, he has irreparably altered the true course of Time. "The beast - the Dahaka - is the guardian of the Timeline. You were supposed to die, so it will catch you and see to it that you meet your fate." He raises a hand to still the Prince, set to leave.

The young man is determined, and speaks firmly. "It is better to try than to wait here for death." "Madness! Even if you manage to reach the Island, you'll still have to face the Empress of Time." "I will travel back in time and prevent the Sands from ever being made," the Prince reasons. "If there are no Sands, the Dahaka will have no quarrel with me." "Go then, my Prince, but know this: your journey will not end well. You cannot change your fate." The Old Man turns away. "No man can."

--

Ok, not as long as i wanted it but i needed a stop point and cliffhanger to give you all something to look forward to.

i will not lie, the next part won't have much action but it will give you at least SOME idea on how the action later will be grand. So watch out.

Prince wakes from his slumber: where am i?

your at the end of this chapter

Prince: but...why? i should be destroying the sands!!

you will SIT!!

The prince sits

GOOD!!..you'll get there so just sit back and wait till you go after them again.

BYE!! READ AND REVIEW!!


	12. Chasing The women in black

Here's a long ass chapter for you!!

Prince: you will have me destroy the sands or i will have your head

...

Prince get's bashed in the head with a hammer

...well onwards and outwards

--

The Prince comes to lying on a rocky shore, pecked at by squawking black birds. He stands quickly and shrugs them away. All around in the gloom of dawn the wreckage of his ship is tossed in the surf, but no sign of his companions. Nor yet their attackers.

As more birds threaten, he feels instinctively to his back. "My swords! Gone." He picks up a length of wood and strikes his tormentors. Each fades in a wild cawing flurry of feathers, and not only blood but also the curious yellow substance of sand. No ordinary wildlife this; he is in a cursed place of demons.

Though strewn with spars and wreckage, the turbulent cove is devoid of life, but for more possessed crows which caw and circle to assail him. He wearily hacks them aside, and considers his lot. "My crew! All are lost. I will find the one who did this," his voice cracks with emotion, "and she will pay."

Scattered on the shore is the wreckage of many ships, not just his own. Here too, as a warning perhaps, dismembered corpses strung on a gibbet. The cove is set into a cavern of rock. Waterfalls tumble to the shore. A broken walkway leads up. On steps at its foot, lit brands gutter in the wind.

He moves to them, the only way off the shore. He negotiates gaps and ledges, works his way steadily upward. He passes a decorative stone basin where water flows as the tears of a maiden carved at its head. The clear fountain water is greatly refreshing. At a wall of split rock he dislodges nesting birds, which scatter but do not threaten him. He works meticulously around rocks and ledges, not risking a fall from these cliffs on a clumsy maneuver.

He looks out on the cold misted ocean, wind and waves and the desultory flapping of dislodged birds the only sounds in this desolate place. He comes soon to solid stone walls of a fortress built into the rock. He must find a way in.

At a gap between rock platforms he runs out on a wall, passes easily from one to the next - easily that is for the young agile Prince, but much beyond any lesser man. He comes to broken columns, part of another walkway still partially erected above. He clutches at the most slender and shuffles to its top, reaches back to another and on to the next.

From his hold on the last column he jumps to grab on to the walkway, and pulls up. A thick tree trunk blocks up the way ahead, evidence of disuse of the walkway for very many years.

Close by stand massive wooden gates. The foot of one gate has rotted out. He ducks and rolls through. "Stop the intruder!" a voice shouts, "He's the one the Empress wants dead." Enemies lie in wait, hideous horned creatures the same devilish spawn as the Pirate raiders, their words confirmation that this is the domain of the Empress of Time and these her willing servants.

He engages swiftly, using his length of wood to batter one aside as he deals with the next. He steals a weapon from one and then turns to finish both. The Prince had not sought this confrontation, but with each enemy slain he took account of the lives of his murdered crew.

Now inside the fortress walls there would surely be more sentries ready in wait. He clambers on stone blocks to shallow steps, broken in front, to make his way further in. Wind howls. With another agile run along a wall he comes to a broken platform with a bigger gap beyond.

Set about in niches in the fortress walls stand statues of knights in armor, one at his side now crumbled as ruinous vegetation takes hold. The gap ahead is crossed at a run with a leap backwards off it, to land face to face with more Raiders. "Let's finish him." Practice for his new sword.

Tall gates stand open ahead. All seems quiet. He makes his way over blocks and stones to an iron gate that bars his way. Beside it a collapsed block, off which he climbs over the wall in front.

On the other side of the gate, stone statues stand mute yet impressive. These appear to be of the Griffin, a mythical beast he had learned of in school, with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. What could be its significance here? Light breaks through the ceiling above and tree branches hook in.

A door at one side is firmly shut. The Prince moves through a high arched doorway to gray light ahead. High in front of him stands the entrance to a mighty castle building.

He is certain that his quarry has passed this way. "Come on, I know you're out there," the Prince mutters as he looks about. "Show yourself." Black boots step out nearby.

"Where I come from," continues the Prince, "we face our opponents. And if our enemy is unarmed we offer them a sword." On this last he slashes quickly at the creeping figure of the girl in black behind, cuts her gasping to the ground. In a second, Raiders gather to her aid.

She gets to her feet and commands them. "Kill him!" The first minion charges, yellow eyes burning with blind hate, and is knocked to the ground. The Prince steals its weapon and impales the wretch with it.

Whirling through the air, he lashes out and the rest are dealt death in similarly gruesome style. The Prince turns to his now unprotected opponent. She gives a look of loathing and signals to a second wave of loyal servants as she makes her escape. Once more surrounded, the Prince readies his weapons.

"He's no match for us." "Few can match blades with me," he warns. Though at first sight outnumbered, the Prince executes dazzling moves upon the attackers as he sees fit, whirling and slashing, chopping and slicing, dealing decapitation and dismemberment until the last shriek. "Slaughtered," comments the Prince with some understatement.

He sheaths his swords and looks around. He stands on a short ruined platform. Stunted vegetation gnarls the foot of broken steps that lead away to end abruptly in collapsed blocks.

Much higher are seen the rest of the flight, at what must be the Fortress Entrance. He will have to work another way to get within. He returns inside to find a door now ajar, through which no doubt his craven quarry fled. He takes sustenance at a fountain basin.

The gray stone passage in which he stands is much damaged by time. The floor bears intricate decoration, now broken and ruined. He leaps first one gap and then another. In his way a small wooden rack, that when smashed reveals a useful weapon. He returns to the open through a doorway ahead.

Evil black birds watch balefully, orange eyes aglow. At a squawk they rise to a dense flock and form themselves as an ungodly black-cloaked demon. It rises from one knee to flourish a sword. The Prince, undaunted, rushes to its challenge. On a narrow stone bridge, with circular decoration cracked at its center, the combatants clash.

The Prince learns soon that this Crow Master is swift to block and swifter to strike. Though tall, it takes little effort for him to vault over, and it seems weakest then. It stumbles with a shocked shrill cry as he deals down a savage blow on its back. A flurry of dust and feathers rise. He repeats the move but the creature blocks. He tries again and gets through, and again it gasps and reels.

He keeps up this leaping tactic, though it oftentimes blocks, and with persistence breaks through. The demon collapses and scatters as screeching birds. These flap wildly and rise in a furious cloud, then settle on a higher ledge, where as the Crow Master they reform.

The Prince senses that on that very path his course lies, and searches about for some means to get up to it. As he moves away a thick watery voice echoes. "You'll need to try harder if you hope to best me." "Your time would be better spent seeking sanctuary," advises the Prince. "Run while you still can."

The platform created by the broken floor allows no way forward. Steps in front lead only to a closed wooden gate. Twin columns stand at one side, too high to reach on their thick bases. At the side of his entrance a low wall rises to a ledge. An upward wall run and jump back bring him to a small platform formed by its canopy.

The Prince looks across to broken walkways where the Crow Master waits. It seems almost to be showing him the way, daring him to come to it and face its challenge.

Very well.

The two slender columns are between them. The Prince runs out on the wall, leaps at a trail of ivy aligned to it, and catches the first column. With a swift shuffle round he grabs for the second, and straight from it, over bottomless depths to land on the walkway with its stern standing obstacle. "So it's a fight you want?" the Prince shouts. "I can smell your fear from here."

"Unfortunate that you have fallen so easily," returns the avian demon. "I find this display of weakness surprising." The narrow walkway is not the best battleground but a few timely attacks of downward slashes upon it bring the towering foe to a crumble of feathers and dust as before.

Yet again it reforms to the black-cloaked figure on a higher ledge. "Rise up, Prince, let us continue this, I'm not finished yet." "I grow tired of this," he replies. "Why do you bother?" The Prince moves to it in determined pursuit.

By a wall run to a block and another to return, he climbs ledges overhead, and on to a precarious hanging column. A last jump and he faces the Crow Master once more. "Do you see now how it's done?" it mocks.

The Prince is unmoved. "I have faced far worse than the likes of you." He moves constantly, rolls at any attack and leaps in at first pause, not letting the Crow Master's mighty sweeps come under his guard to knock him off his feet. Still the demon taunts him. "I am sure you can do better than that." With but a little more exertion the Prince hacks at the Crow Master and lands a blow that cleaves the demon through.

It dissipates once more, and this time he senses for good. There comes grudging respect even from this unholy creation for the skill of the Prince. A disembodied voice echoes: "It is an honor to die by your hand." The demon leaves behind an impressive sword, which the Prince eagerly snatches up.

This combat has led him up to high ledges. Beside him is a barred gate. Broken steps downward lead nowhere and there is no obvious vantage point. On a wall nearby, a brightly colored square tile hints at a method by which the barred gate might open; a symbol upon it matches one on the gate.

The Prince runs nimbly up over the tile. As he does so the tile illuminates. The pressure of his feet triggers a mechanism, and a hidden switch activates. The gate behind is now unlocked.

He enters and looks down on a ruined chamber of ivy-covered walls and broken stone pillars. Raiders stand waiting on the floor. "Alert the others!" a voice commands, "Help me with this." To one side, a long red curtain reaches almost to the floor. In the manner he employed on the sail of his ship, the Prince runs out to it, strikes through the material with his sword, thus braking his descent, and slides smoothly down.

Safe to the ground, he whirls into the waiting pack. The last beaten Raider groans as he falls. "Forgive my failure." With the room now clear the Prince makes exploration. An impassible gap splits the stone floor ahead.

No way through the doorway there from here, and no other exit. He sees up above a serviceable walkway that surely leads somewhere. A pillar to one side offers access. He runs up off a block at its base to grab hold of a ledge, shuffles to one side and hauls up on the walkway, covered in rubble and home to a Raider. He sees it off with scant exertion. "Others will rise to take my place," comes its dying threat.

Very well, the Prince's thought. Come one, come all. He will be ready. The walkway ends abruptly, but he sees a ledge around a pillar nearby that he might reach by a wall run. Clinging on here, he shimmies around the wall, over the misty depth of the impassable gap on the floor below.

Once round, he drops off to a niche and from there to a block on the floor of a passage. This leads in pale light to a gap rent across it. He hears a mechanical squeak and sees below in the gap a spinning saw blade, grinding sparks. Although wary of its likely effect, it seems somehow stuck fast and he runs easily over to the other side of the gap.

As he rounds a corner at a run, spiked poles rise from the floor with a hollow 'Clunk!' to surprise him, but likewise halt uselessly. These must once have been formidable defenses but were now crippled by decay. He looks on, to a bright shimmering doorway ahead. He approaches cautiously but sees that the sheen is nothing more harmful than a shower of water, and passes safely beneath. Lichen-filled basins of water stand either side of a short dank passage of arches and pillars.

Leaves swirl in drafts, the ruined chamber where he stands is open to the skies. He steps warily forward. To either side, a pair of thick square pillars bear a tile with a distinctive blood red symbol.

A thin stream of intensely glowing yellow liquid runs from each pillar to gullies in the stone floor, forming an intricate design ending in a spiral, where a vortex of light rises. As the Prince steps forward he is stopped in his tracks. The girl in black looks over her shoulder with a sly grin. He draws his weapon from his back and runs forward. She stands on the edge of a circular platform, an abyss beyond.

There is nowhere for her to go, she cannot escape his sword this time. To his astonishment the girl is drawn into the air and appears suspended by some unknown force. She gives a moan of satisfaction. He runs to strike her with his sword but connects only with air. She is gone! "Madness!" he gasps, "What magic is this?" Sparkles of sand glitter. As he stands bewildered, his body is wracked by a spasm and he too is drawn up into a beam of glowing light. Before his eyes, the decay of time is rolled back.

Clinging vegetation shrinks its clawing roots from broken pillars that resume to the full splendor of light and decoration as new. The beam of glowing energy released the Prince from its grip. As he fell to the floor and looked around, a boot kicked out to his head and knocked him down. The girl in black ran off.

It seemed to be the same chamber room, but now very different. He could not explain it. No sign of ruin or decay, all brightly lit with candles and torches. He turned back between the four pillars, their tile symbols here brightly illuminated. Ahead lay the doorway with its curtain of water.

He paused at a now pristine fountain basin and tried to make sense of the circumstance. "It seems I have discovered one of the time-traveling portals the Old Man spoke of."

Whatever lay beyond this portal he must chase down the girl in black. She could explain this. He steeled himself and left the portal chamber through the curtain of water. Torches now lighted the passage beyond. Where daylight streamed before only thin rays penetrated at slits.

As he rounded the first corner he heard traps spring into action. Here again were the twin spiked poles, now fully operational in their deadly intent, spinning back and forth across his path, raising dust as they whipped round and round.

He stepped carefully by and found a second hazard at the turn. Wall blades had become active, buzzing relentlessly up and down either side of a pit of spikes. Across it, a Raider waited; it seemed that this Past bore no better welcome from its inhabitants than the Present he left behind.

He observed each rise and fall of the saw blade and judged the moment to run over on the wall. The lone sentry offered little sport. With a few acrobatic jumps the Prince grabbed it and snatched its weapon, which he then tossed in its ugly face. "I can't beat him alone," groaned the dying creature.

He came presently to a chamber of decorated pillars and high balconies. In its now complete state he could scarcely recognize it as the room he had entered by the hanging red curtain. What had been open to the skies was here fully roofed, the bottomless pit in front covered by stone floor.

A number of Raiders waited on it. "Stop the intruder," one commanded, "Destroy him!" He moved swiftly, breaking their rash attack. At the center of the room was a short column that he could use to spin and slash as he went, and the many stone blocks and pillars proved useful as foundation for flying lunges.

A weapon rack standing to one side was easily smashed, yielding a convenient projectile. He was learning new tricks and methods of dealing with the inhuman foe as he went, and relished each opportunity for combat. "Honor and glory shall be ours," one creature declared. "You should be honored to die by my sword," he replied.

When he had peace the Prince made further exploration. Opposite the door at which he entered was another, though solidly shut. To one side of the room was a screen of latticed arched windows but no way to the room beyond. A high wall switch caught his eye.

He looked up around the balconies to find a route to it but saw no easy access. He remembered that he had once climbed up on a pillar, but there was no convenient fallen block to mount this time. Beside his entrance, a slender column looked easily climbable and proved so.

He jumped back to a ledge on a pillar. Up on the balcony, a simple wall run brought him to a ledge around a square plinth, atop which sat another stern carved likeness of a Griffin. It seemed an important figure to whatever manner of inhabitants dwelt here. Around a short section of walkway beyond this he came to a sudden edge.

The wall switch was set just beyond, a far distance from the ground below. Seeing a long hanging curtain an equal distance beyond gave him an idea. He took up his courage and ran out, over the switch, onto the curtain and down, his sword at the ready as before.

He fell safe to the floor and ran quickly to the side and rolled under the now open gate. It clanged shut behind him. He was in the open once again. He looked up to leaden skies. Steps led down to a short bridge. By a circular design at its center he recognized it as the place he first encountered the Crow Master in his own time. He needed to keep his bearings. Intent on arriving at the Fortress Entrance he could not afford to wander aimlessly.

An open doorway faced him; rotating spiked pole traps close within. A glance about showed two slender columns in the distance to one side, and a colonnade in the other. Looking up, he observed Raiders on a terrace above it pacing as sentries. He had no desire for unnecessary exertion.

He made his way in past the fast spinning poles. Around a corner a similarly spinning spiked log rose and fell in a groove across his path. He chose his moment to tumble beneath and forward to a corner. Here, two more poles spun in opposition, at one point meeting then dividing, leaving sufficient space at that moment to dodge through.

Such slight injury as clumsiness or hesitation had earned was soon mended in a draft out of a nearby water fountain. He ran on into the next passage. Guttural cries could be heard as from nowhere appeared two tall slender beings, gliding rapidly from side to side in black swirling clouds, of no greater substance than a mere silhouette.

Should he stand at one place they cast short daggers, one on another, knocking him back in a multiple assault. Though he blocked with his sword, should he try to attack in an instant they vanished and reappeared nearby to assault him afresh. "I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere," one hissed.

They could as easily glide straight through him, knocking him hard to the ground. To determine his strategy the Prince ran for such cover as he could find. "Poor Prince," came an echoing taunt. "Seems you're just out of reach." He didn't take kindly to having deadly objects thrown at his person. Choosing a moment when the assault died down, he stepped into view and hurled his own secondary weapon.

It cartwheeled through the air and caught a direct hit on one ghastly apparition. With a choked gurgle its head parted from its shoulders. The other redoubled its efforts. "Just like your own shadow, Prince, you'll never be free of me." Finding the numbers now more to his liking, the Prince dashed forward to strike with his sword.

He landed a few heavy blows that made their mark but the hellish creature was swift. "Don't you know, Prince?" it mocked, "You can't kill a shadow." A furious hail of blades caught the Prince unawares and he retreated to the safety of the passage once again.

Here was a weapon rack, which he split with his sword to claim another blade. He hurled this at the second shadowy foe and as with the other the touch of flying steel proved enough.

It similarly collapsed and disappeared in a puff of foul dust. The Prince claimed a blade from the trace left behind. These Silhouettes had been set to guard access to a steep flight of steps.

The Prince fancied them somewhat familiar, and as he looked up he saw the magnificent fortress, its gates now wide open. Proud banners fluttered all down either side. He had reached his goal, now accessible.

He was certain the girl in black was already within, and certain too that she would lead him to her mistress, the Empress of Time. Eagerly he made his way up, hearing soon angry voices. "Help me with this." Then another, shouting: "Finish him!" Raiders swarmed down the steps to repel the invader.

He engaged the frontrunners and heard as he fought the familiar harsh roar of a shadow creature such as the two he had recently defeated. To his satisfaction, in its blind rage to assault the Prince with showers of knives, this apparition was as likely to damage any Raider between.

With this unwitting assistance he soon cleared them all, and in a moment cast a spare weapon to the direction of the raging Silhouette, slicing it to extinction at first touch. In triumph he entered the mighty fortress. Up a flight of steps he encountered a vicious sword trap.

A blade sprang from a rotating drum, swishing at a height and a rate that required a judicious wall run or a tumble roll beneath to pass safely. At its reach, a deadly pit of spikes. The Prince jumped expertly to a ledge on the other side, and up to another, though broken. From this he reached up to a third, and passed hand over hand along the wall at its extent, dust crumbling at his fingers. He dropped down upon other ledges to a leap back to a parallel passage.

A lone Raider was made aware of the folly of standing in his way. This passage housed two more rotating drum blades, quite easily passed under at a roll or above on the wall close beside.

He looked around the last corner to a vast room beyond. This was the Central Hall to the fortress of the Island of Time. Light came from windows set high above, and too from a dozen flickering bowls of yellow fire suspended from the ceiling on long chains, swaying in the light breeze about the vast open space.

Towering pillars flanked sculpted niches, a spout of water pouring steadily at the center of each. A large doorway faced his entrance, and others could be seen set into the walls either side, albeit with no obvious means of access. Huge blocks of stone were set round about an irregular central platform, cracked and ruined.

On this paced a number of Raiders. "Stop the intruder!" A repeated command: "He's the one the Empress wants dead." Now very well practiced, the Prince finished them easily and examined the platform on which he then stood alone. At its center was a shallow circular niche, a smaller circular depression inside.

On two sides of this were set carved motifs, one a depiction of a gear cog and the other what might have been the symbol of water. Their significance could not be guessed. Flanking this decoration, four slender columns rose to the ceiling high above. These were bound on the floor by a decorative edge that reached back to a curious device; a small stone sculpture that had the appearance of a rose.

The Prince observed a slot at its crown. Again, speculation as to its purpose would have been fruitless. He hopped over a gap to the large doorway. Through bars he saw stairs protected by traps. He would have to find some way to pass within but the gates here were as yet firmly shut. After refreshment at a water fountain beside, he returned to the central platform. He looked over the edge.

Mist rose from the bottomless depths. At one side an initially promising set of tall column blocks proved too difficult to climb. A second set at the opposite edge gave easier access. Turning to the slender columns at the center of the platform, from this height he jumped easily one to the next to land atop the first set of tall blocks. At this level he could see a balcony over the door he had entered. Another doorway led off it. A wall run and leap back brought him standing before it. A guard Raider ran silently forward to meet his death.

At a corner inside, spinning spiked poles broke his rhythm only a little across a series of spike pits. The Prince dropped into the floor at the passage end. A ladder led him to a waiting Raider, unprepared it seemed for attack from above. Twin poles ground up and down to a spike pit ahead but the Prince passed easily over them.

Again, the small effort belied the impossibility of passage that another man might face. A ladder at a drop presented the minor obstruction of sweeping spiked logs in his path but he slid down at a carefully judged moment.

Though Raiders came now in pairs he was yet undeterred. "I have more important matters to attend to," he declared. Through the following passage, light curls of smoke tumbled from a hanging bowl overhead to lick about the floor.

Partly obscured, the Prince did not notice rows of small holes set into the stone tiles under his feet as he stepped forward. Puffs of dust rose, and at a moment steel blades shot out from each hole. He picked up his feet to run fast in front, each deadly trap sprung by his tread, yet not swift enough to catch him as he ran on. He steadied his nerve at a water basin safe beyond reach of the last row of tiles.

--

ok not as long as i wanted it but...it's long!!

Prince wakes: why do you harm me so!? I only want to be rid of the nightmares that plague me!

Because...one way or another your gonna get rid of hem, so why not make it intresting. it will help others better understand you.

Prince: Fine! do as you wish but hurry!

ja ne

(sounds of a hammer hitting a skull is sounded)


	13. Enemies Aplenty, not good

hey all!!...me evil i know :P

lol XD well heres the next chapter enjoy!!

--

Before him the passage led on, with more telltale spike traps laid across the floor and a spiked log grinding up and down at the middle. He ran as surely as before and tumbled beneath, rolling on to a turn in the passage. Here, groaning back and forth, a whole series of spiked poles, which at a cautious dash he slipped in between, to arrive at an open doorway. In a large room of tall pillars beyond, the girl in black ran off at his approach.

Weapons in hand she stopped in a far doorway, looked back to the Prince with a raised eyebrow and a mocking smile, then disappeared through a then firmly shut gate. Very high above it the Prince saw a hanging lever. The girl's running footsteps receded. "I'd best find that woman," thought the Prince, walking out on a platform into the room.

"She's probably gone for reinforcements." Such reinforcements were already at hand. As the Prince stepped forward unaware, a Raider hid flat behind a nearby pillar. Another crept up onto the platform edge. The Prince sensed the danger, but was first faced by a cruel caricature female creature dropping beside him, dressed in crimson and armed with a slicing ring of sharpened steel.

This hellcat danced acrobatically about the Prince as he turned to fight her away, and gleefully took first opportunity to fling her legs about his neck as she dealt him a vicious swipe with her blade. "Pain is exquisite," she mocked. "I commend you." The brutal Raiders clubbed him as he stumbled under her attack, and these were joined in their murderous endeavor by a gliding Silhouette, flinging its blades in volleys as before.

The Prince found it not unhelpful to place a slow-witted enemy between himself and this assailant, that its weapons might find other targets. He concentrated on turning to strike the Blade Dancer where she appeared swiftly beside him. He needed to be quick to match her direction. "I'm not here to hurt you," she lied, with a pout.

"Can't we talk this out?" He had few words to exchange but his blade spoke for him. At length he gained peace from all. He ran first along the carpeted platform to the door through which the girl in black vanished. Firmly shut though with the fortress symbol upon it. There had to be a corresponding switch somewhere.

He looked upwards, at a network of balconies and high ledges. Perhaps that hanging lever up there? There seemed no better alternative. To one side of his platform a low block gave first means of access. Reaching up, he grabbed hold of a metal bar and set himself on a swing, reaching out to clutch onto a higher bar.

From this he moved hand over hand to face a platform balcony. A Raider hurried from an alcove, where bars dropped behind, to wait his arrival. Swinging swiftly across, the Prince removed that small obstacle with a curt instruction. "Return from where you came." The passage off this balcony was indeed barred shut but a thin stone beam led off to another platform.

The Prince balanced out carefully along it. Ahead waited more Raiders. One urged its confederate to action. "Let's get this over with quickly." "A human!" the other agreed. "No match for us." The Prince was not minded to argue.

Once cleared, he found this platform balcony similarly barred at its entrance, and made use of more metal bars and a wooden jetty to ascend to another above it. Though seemingly empty, as the Prince jumped onto this higher balcony he was joined by a Blade Dancer.

The Prince exercised some little restraint in analyzing her unwelcome advances. She was truly swift in dealing her attack, which was at least easily blocked. The Prince found she was even swifter in changing position when he moved to strike back. Again and again he found himself slashing at air, till he learned to match her acrobatic leaps with a sudden change of his own, cutting behind him as soon as he turned, catching her unaware on her landing.

Of no use whatever his own tactic of vaulting a likely opponent, since she simply blocked and cast him on his back at every attempt. With patience and timing he soon got the better of her. With a moment to reflect he looked about. He was now at the very height of the room and once again a possible exit was barred. There was no other way on but to hang over the side of the balcony rail to leap off to a slender arch beam.

He grappled onto it, sending dust showering to the floor far below. Once again he balanced precariously along to face a matching corner balcony, this being not unexpectedly guarded. At least, he could see that a Raider waited on it, but was perhaps taken slightly off guard by the Silhouette that appeared in a flash to assist.

Both were soon given equal dispatch. A hanging red banner gave the only means of departure off this high balcony, it being as solidly barred as the rest. He deftly hopped over the edge, to jump back onto the banner and begin his ingenious descent, though he had to be mindful of a long gap to the floor on its ending. He leaped off at a point to come safe to a deserted platform below.

As with the others, a slender beam led off it. On this one a Blade Dancer dropped swiftly to challenge his progress. Blade drawn, she slid along the beam towards him. "Poor Prince," she murmured seductively. "Come to me." He could easily resist the Siren call but he came to her anyway, that he might deal a lethal blow.

"Ah, you like the pain, don't you? Come closer, Prince," she commanded. "I want to taste my victory." As he balanced his way out on the beam, the Blade Dancer sprang lightly towards him. This was the domain of the gymnastic harlot and he was at a severe disadvantage. Though he attempted to block, she slashed swiftly and the Prince fell aside, clutching desperately to the edge of the beam.

The Blade Dancer somersaulted away, enjoying her sport. "Oh yes, this position suits you," she purred. "Submit!" He scrambled back up, ready to match her this time. As she sprang forward he jumped up in an acrobatic move of his own, avoiding her slash, and came down and slashed back.

Catching her off guard he connected and she sailed off the beam and vanished in a haze of sandy dust. This lesson could prove useful; he sheathed his blade in satisfaction and moved on. Balancing to the end of the long beam he ran off to a platform. Another Blade Dancer appeared. "Don't you know not to strike a woman?" Indeed he did, yet these vile caricatures had only the appearance of feminine form.

He struck away. Still the wicked creation poured cruel innuendo. "I commend you," she moaned. "There's so much pleasure in pain." He had heard enough.

Turning each time to meet her direction, he dealt on the vile travesty of a woman a succession of blows. Color drained from her body, now shrouded in thin trails of sand. On a few more she was gone. The Prince hurried to reach on a low jetty overhead. Dust fell as he scrambled on top, then flung himself sideways to another.

In a similar display of acrobatics as before, he jumped sideways off a wall and up to a third. To one side a last balcony, like the others at opposite corners very high above the ground. He leaped to it. A Silhouette materialized, supported by another Blade Dancer. He had the measure of them both and these were soon gone. Off this balcony was a rounded arch, with a barred gate, which although partly broken was solidly in place.

Behind it the Prince noted a decorative wooden crate. An unusual object to be so well protected behind bars of steel so high above the ground. Standing there for a moment the Prince observed thin vapor tumbling from above. Looking up he saw an arched entrance in one wall in the space above, but no means whatever to reach it. He marked the spot, somehow certain of its significance.

He saw close by the hanging lever he had spotted from the ground, and decided to deal with that first. Once more a nimble hop from the balcony rail had him hanging with his back to a decorative beam. He sprang backwards and clambered up. In a second another Blade Dancer confronted him.

He performed his 'jump up and slash down' routine and got full marks for execution. He balanced out to the lever. Standing at the prow of a jetty midway along the beam, he reached up to activate it. Directly below, the door the girl in black had taken opened at his weight. Dropping off, he jumped ahead to a very long hanging curtain and sailed to the ground to stand before the open door. In triumph he made his way through.

A stone staircase led down to a drop into a murky spike pit. A trap for the unwary perhaps but of little concern to him. A convenient hanging banner allowed him to slip down to a point where he leaped off to a stone jetty.

Catching his balance on this he made a short jump to another, and crossed to a third on the wall opposite. Motes of dust hung in the dank fetid air. He jumped off a last jetty to a floor of spike tiles, on which dust stirred as blades readied to sprout. Too late to impede the nimble Prince. He ran on to take refreshment at a fountain.

Bright lanterns beckoned him up a short staircase through a low doorway ahead. On his first steps he saw, high above, a retracting stone platform...Time...was not on his side...

--

it..is...TIME!! MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Prince: Your insane!

no...i'm MORE THEN INSANE HAHAHAH!!

Prince: But then why do you not insanely just let me live and kill the sands!?

Because it wouldn;t be fun that way ...THAT prince..is how I'M INSANE!!

READ AND REVIEW OR I SHALL GO INSANE ON YOU!!MWUAHAHAHAHAHAH!!


	14. Catfights and Urgency

OK here's the next update to the story! As you all might know from reading my other two stories, i am going to move here soon so it will be awhile before i can update once more, which is why i am satisfying you all with three major updates!!

Prince: Well hurry! i cannot keep my patience back just so you can be miles away from the stories original place of making!

Prince calm the fuck down!!

Prince: NO! I DO NOT WANT TO DIE LIKE A DOG!!

THEN SHUT THE HELL UP!! raises hammer

Prince backs away quietly.

Good boy

ONWARDS! time rewinds ONWARDS!!

--

Upon the sliding disappearing pedastal above stood a sinister figure, garbed in black and carrying a sword, staring down at him as it was carried out of sight. As he considered this, the Prince heard the clash of steel and sounds of a struggle. He hurried up the steps. On a raised platform at the center of the room two women fought hand-to-hand. It was the girl in black, locked in combat with a beautiful female with long black hair and green eyes, dressed nearly in red flowing gown slashed to the thigh, and high boots.

She gripped her attacker in a desperate embrace and looked to the Prince. "You," her entreaty, "Help me!" The Prince did not know what to make of the struggle but he still had a score to settle with the girl in black. "It is as they say: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'" As he made his decision the woman in red was thrown off the platform, tumbling with a cry as she clung to the edge.

A black leather boot poised to grind down on the hand of the helpless woman. "Leave her alone!" cried the Prince. "You and I have unfinished business." The cruel vixen turned with a sneer. Seeing her about to stamp down, the Prince rushed forward to draw her away. "You have two choices," she warned him, "Run or die." The third alternative to hand, the Prince laid in a few strokes then backed off, too well aware of her lightning response.

The she-devil dealt out towards him her familiar combination of strokes. "I am not impressed," the Prince responded. He took his moment again, after her double raised thrust and single slash, to reply. "This is just the beginning," she assured him. "Flee while it's still an option, fool." Again she spanked her hip with the flat of her blade in a mocking gesture. "I have no time for this," he said.

He leapt in at his chosen moment, sending her back in a fury. "Is this the best you have to offer?" she spat. They locked as before with blades at each other's throat. Finding her surprisingly strong, the Prince summoned all his strength to force her back. "You call yourself a master swordsman?" "Dust to dust," he replied. "This is going to hurt you far more than it's going to hurt me." Yet he must keep his wits sharp.

She had added a dangerous trick to her repertoire since last they had fought. Once able to block her attack at his leisure, the Prince now found that should he stand close, the girl kicked suddenly with the full force of her boot, sending him skating backwards across the surface of the platform, winded at its edge. He knew he could not long sustain that much damage.

With her bothersome interruption subdued, the girl turned her attention back to her female prey. The Prince shook himself together to rush to her aid, drawing the attacker away yet again. He kept respectful distance now, ready to flip backwards as the powerful kick came, and was swift to lunge in as she left herself open. They locked weapons once more. The Prince could sense he had the advantage, and threw her off again.

Yet she was contemptuous as ever. "Tell me when you're going to be ready to fight for real." "I grow tired of this," he responded. "You aren't worth my time." Again they circled, she clanging and striking her sword to the ground at his feet, tempting him to a rash move. He held firm, warily watching for that deadly blow off her boot while blocking her furious two-sword assault.

He jumped over her then, knocking her back. For the third time they locked. The girl now screamed out in fury. "You have no place on this island. Do you really think you can defeat me?" "You'll have to do better than that," he suggested as he resumed the attack. "I will not allow you to stand in my way." Bit by bit he wore her down. On a sudden blow she reeled backwards. "How?" she panted furiously, "How can this have happened?"

As the savage girl was thrown to the floor he raised his sword high and them plunged it hard down, driving her clean through. The weapon fell from her black-gloved hand. He stood for a moment and thought of what he had done. Her life or his. A cry from the woman still hanging from the edge brought him to his senses. He hurried to her, grasped her arms and pulled her to safety.

With no word of thanks she stalked off. "Wait!" he called after her. "Please, I must speak with you." "What do you want from me?" "I seek an audience with the Empress."

With a hollow laugh she replied, "The Empress meets with no one. Who do you think you are?" "I am the Prince of Persia." She considered this, arms akimbo. "I see." Then announced, "Today is a very important day. She cannot be disturbed." "I don't think you understand how important this is."

From the bloody floor nearby, the mortally wounded girl in black stirred. "Fool!" she said. "Don't you know?" The woman in red and the Prince stood transfixed at the painfully forced words. "You cannot change your fate." In a flash of yellow light, the girl collapsed and disappeared.

Shielding his eyes, the Prince turned from the woman now clinging to him. "'You cannot change your fate'... Was she speaking to me?" he wondered. "How could she know my mission?" At that moment a part of the ceiling gave way, creaking and crumbling from the shock of the energy explosion on the girl in black's demise. Masonry and dust rained down, blocks crashed to the platform beside them.

As a larger section of the roof collapsed, they moved as one. "Watch out!" the Prince yelled, flinging the woman aside. She cried out, masonry falling between them, knocking out the stone steps. Dust cleared. "Stay there!" the Prince called down. "I will find my way to you." "No, Prince," she coolly replied. "Leave this place and never return. The Empress has no love for the world of men.

She will kill you if she learns of your presence." She walked away, leaving the Prince to consider all that he had seen. He followed a trail of dried blood up nearby stone steps to a candlelit rotunda, and noticed upon the floor there a grooved channel leading down to the platform below. By its color and appearance the groove seemed at one time to have been filled with blood.

He realized with horror that this entire structure was a Sacrificial Altar to some unknown purpose. Up here was a sculpted block with a metal bar on it that might serve as a handle. He gave his weight to the bar and dragged the block backwards along the groove. A door rumbled behind. He went to investigate. Down a narrow flight of stone steps he came on a passage.

At the far end he observed two spiked poles grinding back and forth in opposition across his path. Set into the floor leading up to them, a carpet of hidden spike traps. Should he align himself with one wall and wait for the nearest pole to touch the opposite wall, he judged that he could run across at that very moment. The pole seemed to travel to meet him but moved away as his dash across the sudden sprouting spikes brought him safely past. Without pause he slipped past the second pole before it too returned.

He looked now along a similar passage of spike traps. In this, a horizontal spinning log rolled relentlessly upwards and down almost to the floor. A turret sword swished just beyond.

The Prince began his run as the log neared the bottom of its travel, his dash close to one wall bringing him safely beneath and ready to tumble expertly under the sword as it slashed close over his head.

He caught his breath at the safety of a corner. Such fiendish devices as these had surely been set to guard something very special, and he was determined to discover what it might be. The next hazard was a spinning saw blade midway along a spike pit, which the Prince crossed with a wall run timed as the blade passed near halfway down. As he landed the Prince executed a roll, passing over another spiked floor and under a rotating blade.

Taking a second pause for breath in a corner he saw now a large symbol, dimly glowing red on a far wall at the darkened end of the passage. That surely was his goal, and the sequence of deadly traps an impossible obstacle to it for all not so daring or agile as he.

Yet still he was not there. A spiked pole moved towards him over an inevitable carpet of spike tiles. The Prince readied himself on its approach and followed it over the traps. As these started to sprout, he tumbled and tumbled, passing under the moving log and a second one vertically scything behind. He sustained but slight injury in this. With a certainty he could not explain, he knew what he had to do.

The Prince carried on his leather breastplate an Amulet ,a precious gift, waiting only sufficient charge from a mysterious force to unlock its power. He snapped it from its mount and placed it on a recess at the center of the red glowing device, seemingly made for that purpose. The configuration of the device changed in mechanical operation.

The Prince retrieved his Amulet, which pulsed in brilliant radiance. As he snapped it back to his breastplate a fiery ball of energy swept him up, holding him locked in its grip, his back arched, hands held outstretched, eyes aglow with intense blue light. He was wracked with a sudden spasm and dropped to a ring burst of light, at which he became released, unharmed.

The Prince stood before the symbol, the strange device now glowing dull red at its core. Wisps of vapor curled about him. He could not comprehend what had happened but he felt his energies renewed, strength fully recovered.

He prepared himself for the perilous journey back past the traps in the passage, but as he turned to leave, the legion of deadly devices behind him became inactive, the logs retracting into the walls, the sword drums to the floor, and the spike tiles no longer triggered by the pressure of his feet. Their purpose defeated, these deadly traps no longer had cause to guard what lay beyond.

He returned gratefully along the now silent passage to the Sacrificial Altar. The falling masonry had created a platform on one side, which he mounted to face a wall pillar with thin decorative ledges. Jumping easily to one, he edged around a squared pillar to see a metal pole protruding from one wall. He swung easily from this to another wall pillar, with another ledge, off which he jumped back to the first.

With his athletic ability he seemed always to navigate a sure route beyond any obstacle. Though broken on top by the recent destruction, the ledge around this pillar held firm as he edged to another wall pole, a second directly above. An agile bound off a wall saw him hanging from this, where he made sure to twist his body to face the direction of a last pillar top, that he might grasp a firm hold and not spin fatally to thin air.

On this high pillar top he glanced up to see a rope hanging against the wall just above his head. He reached to grab its end. Using this rope to set himself swinging as a pendulum he gained enough momentum to release and run across the wall to grab a stone jetty further along. Dust crumbled but it held firm. From this he jumped down to find a basin at which to refresh himself.

He came to the end of a broken walkway. He was still some distance from the vaulted ceiling, and looked down to the altar far below. He dropped to a broken stone beam just beneath, and made a bold leap to the matching part of it, where a flaming lantern on a chain hung under.

On one wall between was set a very large carved symbol, which he had begun to recognize at intervals everywhere, a motif of triangles carved in a nearly closed circle. He moved on around column ledges to balance out on the thin edge of a carved stone animal whose mouth served as a spout to send water pouring to the depths below, as various spouts did about the room everywhere.

He jumped back to a wall pillar with another thankfully solid ledge. A wall bar served as an intermediate to another carved waterspout, and a ledge with a niche in the wall above allowed him to shimmy to a high balcony. Over a block plinth against the wall was another rope, which he climbed fully to turn and face a hanging lever. Jumping to it caused two tall wooden shutters on the wall nearby to close.

He realized they had else blocked his path. Setting himself at a swing, he returned with a jump to the hanging rope. He slid down and back to the platform beneath. Looking to one side he could easily run across the now closed shutters and reach another stone platform beyond. Here hung another rope, and the Prince used it to swing this time to a walkway.

Candlelit recesses and a flickering torch in a stand lit a rank of spike tiles set in one corner. Above these a wall switch. It seemed to serve little purpose, merely activating the wickedly sharpened spikes beneath, which thankfully receded on his landing.

He made his way into a nearby chamber and no sooner had the chance to ponder its emptiness than a red- garbed Blade Dancer swooped down close behind him, followed swiftly by another and another and another. Taken unawares the Prince barely shook them back before he was surrounded and at risk of terrible punishment from their lightning attack.

An idea struck him then and he moved quickly outside and onto the spiked tiles. The stealthy assassins appeared beside him and gathered close to deal their devil's handiwork as he had anticipated, and with a brisk run up over the wall switch then every one was skewered in a flash. He gathered the power of their residual Sand and with grim satisfaction headed back inside the now silent chamber.

This was an octagonal space, set with pillared alcoves. Glancing up, the Prince saw the light of a high exit and bars across the width of the room that might lead to it. Ledges on one wall gave access to these. Swinging from one to another, he turned about and up to a third. He swung easily through a section of open wall. He was in a short featureless platform room, a few pots scattered to one side as elsewhere through the fortress.

He recognized on the floor in front of him spike trap tiles, and ran quickly forward to a wall and up to the safety of a ledge. Another above gave height to jump backwards to a bar, where turning once again he rebounded off the wall to spring up to another. Turning yet again, he jumped off to a ledge. Creaking and groaning above his head in its relentless course was a spiked log.

The Prince shuffled to one corner as far as he could go and judged he might leap to a second ledge at the same height behind him against one wall. This lay directly under the sweep of the spiked log. He timed exactly his moment and scrambled to his feet on the ledge, where without hesitation he jumped backwards and grabbed the narrow ledge just barely as the spinning log returned.

He dropped swiftly beneath it and shuffled to safety the other side. Here the passage continued, bright lit and crudely decorated with a frieze of ancient figures. Around a corner a deep pit, its wall protected by a familiar buzzing saw blade.

He ducked beneath as he ran out to grab hold of a convenient hanging rope. A second rope on the opposite side of the pit was easily reached off it. Lowering himself to the very end of this, the Prince judged that he could work enough distance and momentum to run off to the end of the spike pit, with the minor consideration of a second buzzing blade in his path.

He ran out on its upward travel and passed safe beneath. After this he thought little of traversing the course of four spiked spinning poles, two of which were at station and two traveled. He slipped easily between with the slightest pause. Ahead he saw the bright sheen of water such as he had found at the doorway to a portal chamber when in pursuit of the girl in black.

As he might have hoped, at his entrance through this the Prince discovered a separate chamber of identical design. He noticed immediately that glowing liquid did not flow from any pillar.

The floor spiral was dark. "The portal no longer works!" he realized. "Something is wrong." He needed to restore the flow of molten sand to the spiral at the center of the portal, and to do that he had to reset the pillar switches. He had come to recognize the square tiles with the distinctive symbol as switches, be they set into the floor or high on a wall as these were.

He knew the means to trigger them and found it less of an effort than an ordinary man would, yet as the Prince ran up over one switch it flickered briefly but did not seem to activate. He tried another. This stayed fully lit and a thin stream of liquid poured into the channel at his feet. He tried the next. Alas, this merely flickered as the first and now he found that the previous switch had returned to dark.

He reset it and followed with a different switch. This lit up and the first switch remained illuminated. It was clear that the four switches had to be set in sequence, and any deviation would cause the sequence to be reset and need starting again.

A little trial and error found the right order to keep all four switches lit, and on this he observed a very river of white-hot sand flow from each column and along grooved channels in the floor to the spiral out on the platform. He ran to its eye. Vision blurred. All around the chamber grew darkness and decay, as thick rooted vegetation gripped pillars and covered walls, which fell instantly to ruin. The work of years in a few passing seconds.

Released from the grip of the Time vortex, the Prince falls to his feet. The portal chamber is gray and decayed, its decoration withered, roof open to the night sky. Steam rises from the still flowing sand in the spiral of the platform, wall switches are still aglow. All else is ruin, though water yet runs in basins near the portal entrance.

He heads to the door, satisfied that he has returned to his own time. "Good, I seem to be back in the Present. At least I know how these portals work." Through the curtain of water, the passage beyond has been rebuilt in an unfamiliar configuration. Fresh traps are evidently very much active: hidden spike tiles and two spinning poles. He passes easily at the right moment and edges onto a thin wall ledge. He drops down to another and moves around a narrow passage, drops to a block platform and wall runs to another.

Here he descends ledges to the floor. Rubble lies strewn about, and through a broken wall he sees a switch on the floor with a familiar blood red symbol upon it. It sets open a door at the end of the passage here, yet as he runs to go through it, the door grinds shut. Try as he may the Prince cannot get there in time. A thought strikes him.

His treasured Amulet has long been filled with as much sand as it can hold; yet until his visit to the hidden device off the Sacrificial Altar in this place in the Past, it held no power. Perhaps his passage through the Time portal has bestowed a residual effect?

He steps on the floor switch once more and indeed, at a press of a button he summons the Eye of the Storm. Time slows to a crawl but the Prince moves swift as ever.

He races along the passage and dives under the closing door before the effect wears away. In the short passage beyond stand two Raiders, unaware of the whirlwind bearing down on them. They move in slow motion, powerless to defend the blows raining down on them.

As Time reverts its normal course, the pair are vanished to yellow dust. "How can this happen?" a dying complaint. "You should have fled when you had the chance." The Prince looks down through a hole to the room below.

All seems quiet.

He drops down. On a sudden noise he ducks down behind a block. At a barred wall across the room appears a demonic creature of deepest black, huge and hideously horned, its eyes holes of burning white light.

With a roar it smashes effortlessly through the wall, blasting the bars and the blocks they are set in to the floor far below. The beast scans ominously about the room. Seeing nothing, it departs. The Prince rises to his feet.

What manner of creature is this? The Old Man spoke of an unstoppable beast, the Dahaka, guardian of the Timeline. Was that what he had seen? He had best take care but he would not be swayed from his course. He must find again the woman in red.

Through her he might gain an audience with the Empress of Time. He runs out on a wall to a stump of branch that has rooted from a crack. He jumps to a second and from there to a rope that hangs on a wall. He drops to its end, sets himself on a swing and jumps to a pole from the wall, on to a branch, then ahead to a stone platform. A jetty off this gives on to a straight sturdy branch, which he just barely clutches to drag himself up. Though nearly overbalancing he makes a leap to a pillar at the center of the room.

He clings and shimmies to put his back to a long decorative banner off a matched pillar facing. He slips easily down with assistance of his blade, sure to spin off before its end where he lands on a twisted metal strut. At floor level the Prince sees a number of Raiders, as yet unaware of his approach. He jumps to a twisted branch not far over their heads, and a few careful shuffles and a leap bring him to a platform close by. "Stop the intruder!" a harsh instruction calls.

Others have tried and others failed, as the Prince knew these must. He leaps to a lower platform where the Raiders crowd around. As he lays in with his sword, Blade Dancers drop swiftly to bolster the attack and he is nearly overwhelmed. "Destroy him," one cries. "You have no place on this island." He moves quickly, spreading his attack to the most pressing target but this is hard combat and no sustenance to hand.

He summons once more the Eye of the Storm. All enemies are slowed to a blur; the Prince moves one to another and finishes all. "Taste my blade," he offers. Yet on a moment two more leaping assassins descend. "You have two choices," instructs one. "Run or die." He decides there is a third option and hits the demonic gymnasts hard. One vanishes to blood and dust, the other circles near.

The Prince flings his smaller weapon to catch the creature off balance then bounds forward to slash it to silence. "Pain is exquisite," she moans. "I commend you." Eager to please, the Prince deals out more.

The platform clear, he moves on. A block ledge brings him to the foot of a pillar and an apparent halt. Looking up, he sees a cranny he might grab on to if he can rise up to it. He prepares for exertion and runs up to gain momentum and jumps back off the wall. At the instant his feet touch the pillar he jumps back to the wall, and then back to the pillar, and back to the wall, rising a little on each jump.

He grabs the cranny and hangs, catching his breath. A backwards leap sees him clinging to the wall a little higher, then he is off once again, back and forth between pillar and wall like a chimney, rising to grab hold of a decorative edge on the pillar near its top. He moves around the pillar, not looking down, and springs off to a long branch that pokes from the wall. He now faces the hole rent by the Dahaka.

He must face the unknown and follow in its step, there being no other exit from the room of perilous jumps. A leap to a ledge just beneath the blasted hole and he is in. A water basin offers the chance for full refreshment. If that beast is after him, the Prince will surely need all his abilities. He looks in the direction taken by the creature but finds only damage and a dead end to the passage.

At the other, a leap over a pit and the Prince is on a balcony walkway outside. The ground shakes ominously. "The Dahaka!" the Prince's first instinct. "It has found me here." In the passage behind him, the terrifying beast reappears.

It advances with menace. "Where is he?" its distorted voice seems to demand. The Prince takes to his heels. He runs along the open walkway, which crumbles as heavy footsteps pound close behind. Leathery tentacles snake through the solid stone walls as he passes, and reach ever closer. The walkway has crumbled ahead but the Prince runs over the gap without pause.

Stone slabs slip to the floor behind as he lands on a last section, turns to jump out on a pole, and on to another and another and off through the air. He lands hard on a stone platform, and stumbles across, looks back to his pursuer. With an angry roar it takes off towards him, springing as a ball of fury to land hard on top. The Prince dives at the last moment with a frantic wail, falls headlong through a small gap to a passage where the Dahaka crashes mightily behind but cannot reach. Temporarily safe, the Prince hurries on. Barrels scarcely block his way through a darkened passage.

An open skylight, ceiling overgrown. A flight of steps and a turn bring a meeting with a lone sentry, watching for an intruder from outside it seems, not within. The Prince comes quietly behind and decapitates the worthless creature. He hops down to a balcony overlooking the rugged rock of the fortress foundations. A daring run out on a wall and a leap off it bring the Prince to a tall barley-cane fluted column.

He climbs until he can leap off to another balcony. A waterfall nearby plunges to unseen depths. From the balcony he looks down on the place where he first met the Crow Master. He is nearing his goal. Through an arched entrance is a metal walkway, and the Prince surveys a familiar room at a higher level. He fought Raiders when last he came through but now it is deserted.

He runs off at one side to a hanging red curtain, and slips down it to the floor. As on his previous visit, the way forward is to ascend a crumbling pillar and cross a rubble-strewn walkway for a wall run to a ledge. He negotiates the broken wall by hanging off it and shimmying under. He drops down to the passage inside. At this the Dahaka appears in the room he just left.

The Prince takes off at a run again, down the passage to the portal chamber. The Dahaka pounds in pursuit. Without pause the Prince scampers across the gap in the floor and on around the corner. With an involuntary wail he throws himself through the portal doorway as leathery tentacles reach. The Dahaka lets out an enraged roar and instantly withdraws its tentacles from the touch of water, and bellows in fury at a standstill beyond.

"What's this?" the Prince realizes. "It cannot cross the water..." A flowing curtain stream protects this portal doorway, as the other, across its entirety.

The Prince is grateful for some small advantage. "This is certain to come in handy." The portal is still active. He runs forward along the glowing rivulet and steps onto the spiral at the end of the platform. As before he is borne into the air and suspended as Time becomes distorted. In a flare of brilliant light the ruined walls and columns return to their former glory as decay and sinewy vegetation shrink back and disappear. The Prince landed to ground and found himself once more in a pristine Past.

He turned to the doorway, thoughts grim. "I have managed to lose the Dahaka - for now. Best I stay alert, it will return. It always does." Magenta drapes of transparent gauze drifted softly, lit by slow swinging brass lanterns hung from the ceiling. Through the curtain of water the Prince hastened to his planned rendezvous with the woman in red.

As he hurried down the now brightly lit passage beyond, he heard once again the twin sliding pole traps activate, and duly slowed to slip between them. Around a corner the spinning wall blades, as easily passed over as before. There seemed no enemy Raiders in sight. He came soon to the room of pillars and balconies. It was a vestibule of some kind between the outside and the fortress within.

As he entered he came face to face, through bars into a room beyond, with the spectral masked figure in black that had stared down at him from the retracting platform above the Sacrificial Altar. It appeared startled at his appearance, and snatched a weapon to hand. Up close it looked more sinister yet, its garb nebulous tendrils that seemed to flow about its body.

He held its eye uncertain. "What kind of beast is this?" A savage one it seemed, as wordlessly, eyes aglow with an eerie light, it hurled an axe towards him. He ducked on reflex as the missile spun close by his shoulder. In an instant the creature made off.

A narrow escape. With no means of pursuit the Prince turned instead to the slender pillar by the door where he entered, and nimbly scaled it as before. From the balcony walkway he made his way over to the wall switch, down the red banner, and through the door, rolling just as it clanged shut behind.

He was outside, facing the passage to the Fortress Entrance. Pausing before the passage door and its spinning spike poles, he recalled the pacing Raider sentries on a terrace nearby. They paced still, and now, better armed and equipped with the Eye of the Storm, he decided to see what they made such a show of protecting. At a low wall to one side he ascended to a grassy ledge, as he had done to follow the Crow Master in his own time.

As then, an upward wall run was sufficient to spring back to grab the stone canopy of the passage door beneath. On landing he attracted the attention of the Raiders close by. "Alert the others," came a synthetic voice. "He's the one the Empress wants dead." A short wall run allowed him to fall slashing on the first opponent. Others ran to assist. The Prince somersaulted to a short column nearby and in one fluid move decapitated two at a stroke.

The last proved no wiser. "I have failed." Nearby was a short flight of steps. As he made his way up the Prince noticed to one side a floor switch, partly concealed behind barrels. He jumped down to take a look. After clearing the obstruction he stepped on the illuminated switch. From somewhere above came the sound of a door sliding open. Hurrying up the steps, he was in time to see a slotted grate low in the wall facing him slide shut. Beside this was a wall switch.

This proved to open not the slot but a main door nearby, yet curiosity told him he had not finished here. Returning to the switch at the bottom of the steps, on activation he summoned the Eye of the Storm to slow Time. With the extra seconds this gave him he was able to run up the steps to dive through the low opening at the foot of the wall.

In a moment Time flowed again and the slot slid firmly shut. The Prince was inside. In the passage ahead a rotating sword blade trap activated. Behind it a massive stone block struck out at speed from one wall, flat across the floor to the opposite wall, where it pounded hard and slid slowly back to pound again. The whole floor appeared to be of spike tiles.

These traps had been set for a purpose and the Prince determined to discover it. He stood and studied the rate of the pounding wall block. Just as it fired out he began tumbling forward, over the spike traps and under the blade, to pass by at a moment it slowly retracted, and safely on as it hammered back out. He knew that a misjudgment would see him flattened to the wall.

At the next corner he saw the chance to repeat the feat through an identical hazard with twin pounding blocks, and still a third beyond. Taking refuge in a corner each time between, at safe radius from the sword blades stationed there, he took his time and soon stood looking past a last sword trap at another strange glowing red symbol set into the wall at the passage end, such as he had seen at the Sacrificial Altar secret passage before.

He slotted his Amulet into the center of the device, which set puffs of flame from within as a hidden mechanism triggered. The device glowed brilliant yellow and then white, and with a blinding flash charged his Amulet for the second time. The Prince retrieved it and placed it to his breastplate. Once again he was drawn into the air by a powerful force in a burst of fire, and suddenly released, strengthened.

As before when he turned to leave he saw all traps retract, the sword blades folded back into their drums, pounding blocks flush to the wall, and spike tiles mercifully inactive. This made easy the return to the slot entrance, where a simple wall switch allowed a rolled exit. His curiosity rewarded, the Prince activated the adjacent wall switch and headed to its raised door.

He realized that this was the same place at which he defeated the Crow Master in his own time. The slide to the floor down a long thin red curtain in the room beyond was the same.

He was back in the vestibule, this time in company of a number of Raiders. He was becoming well practiced in inventive means of dispatch. He ran straight up a wall and performed a graceful back flip, falling with a slash on a confounded victim as he landed. A short spindle column in the center of the room was used as on the terrace shortly before to swing round among three at once, and knock their empty heads clean off at a stroke.

He made his way up to the balcony walkway, and via the Griffin ledge to the next. Across the door switch he executed again his descent at the curtain, which by now was very much tattered.

In a moment he was back down the steps, and across the small bridge at the passage to the Fortress Entrance. This time he went in through the open doorway, where the spiked poles in his path presented no major delay. A few dashes and rolls brought him safely to a basin of water where he took refreshment before pressing on.

Through a doorway beyond he heard as before the harsh insistent growl of the Silhouette he had previously encountered there. Now more experienced, the Prince simply cast his secondary weapon and sliced the apparition cleanly in two. From the black cloud of its passing he scooped up a blade to replace the one he had spent. He hurried to combat up the steep flight of steps to the fortress itself.

He stayed on the steps to limit the direction of the Raiders rushing attack. He well had the measure of these simple creatures by now. "I grow tired of this," he said as he hacked the pack down. "I fall, but more will rise to take my place," groaned their last. "Avenge me, my brothers." The Silhouette was as easily cut in two as his fellow, and died choking blood.

The Prince gained access through the Fortress Entrance once again, and made his way to the Central Hall. This time he noticed the large doorway opposite was open. The woman in red had already passed through. Between him and his goal waited a Raider quartet. Combat was brief. At the far end of the central platform the Prince made a jump out over the bottomless chasm.

Taking pause at the fountain there he prepared to enter the passage beyond. On first rounding of a corner he heard traps being activated. Over the staircase before him two spiked logs, rising and falling, and beyond these a rotating blade, all taken at a roll. At the next turn a spike pit, crossed at a run between another pair of spiked logs, rising and falling in opposition.

At the far end of the pit another blade trap, now almost routine. At the head of the staircase above, a wider spike pit and two more spiked logs, one at station and a lower one coursing back and forth along the pit length. Timing his moment the Prince ran out as the log moved away, and sprang back off the wall to land on a narrow ledge. He was perilously close to the path of the log on its return, and edged himself away into the safety of an alcove.

He moved cautiously back in the wake of the log as it moved away again, finding the ledge on which he stood ended just short of the stationary log. A second ledge starting here just above allowed safe refuge as the moving log made its return.

This now passing safely by under him, the Prince dropped once more and hung off the second ledge, shuffling as quickly as he could manage in the path of the soon returning log. He passed under the stationary one and moved on, to drop with relief at the far edge of the pit. Two more rotating drum blades gave little hindrance. Up a final flight of stairs came a last sword blade trap and once past it the Prince found himself faced by a heavy shut door. Somebody planned few should see it. A ladder propped against the wall led nowhere, but on climbing it the Prince noticed a kind of metal ledge behind him.

He jumped backwards and found this to be a falling lever, which counterbalanced the door at the end of the passage. It ground slowly upwards as he dropped to the ground, standing on the cantilever ledge. He jumped down, but as he ran to the door it began to close, a little too swiftly for him. He returned to operate the lever again, and this time as it fell he maneuvered himself to one side nearest the door and hung from the edge. When he was sure the door had opened to its fullest extent, he dropped off and ran hard for it as it started to close.

Just in time he rolled underneath and it slid shut. He was relieved to notice a wall lever on this side to reopen the door in future, perhaps. He was in a vaulted chamber. A shaft of light struck down from a skylight high above.

At its far end, a stone staircase rose from either side of the room to curve up to a circular platform. Beneath it stood a curious device of slender glass. In the light of a ring of flaming torches he could just make out a figure atop a short ladder beside it. He moved to approach. It was the woman in red.

She stopped, not pleased and not much surprised by the intrusion. "This is a dangerous place. You should not have come back." "I don't have... the luxury, I must see the Empress." The woman climbed down the ladder.

She gave a dismissive sigh. "Impossible." She held in her hand a sword with a long, thin, elegantly twisted blade. The Prince pressed his intention. "My mission," he said, "it is very urgent. I must see her." "You don't understand. When the last grain falls from this hourglass the Empress will create the Sands of Time. No business of yours could be more important than that." "I have come to stop the Empress from creating the Sands." "Then yours is a fool's errand. The creation of the Sands is foretold in the Timeline." She shook her head ruefully. "It cannot be stopped." "I just saved your life," he stabbed an accusing finger. "Twice. All I'm asking for is some information. Tell me where the Sands will be created."

She conceded the obligation, for the good it would do. "In there," she looked to a heavy door behind thick bands of steel. "But the room has been sealed. You cannot enter." "There must be a way." "Hah! You would have to undo the very fortifications of the castle." She gestured the obvious. "An impossible task." "When a man is faced with his own death, he finds the impossible less of a barrier. Tell me how." "Very well."

The woman described for him the method to unlock the heavy door. "The gate is controlled by an elaborate clockwork system located inside the Mechanical Tower." This was a formidable structure built into one wing of the fortress. "Even assuming you can reach the device and activate it, the machine still needs power. As water passes through the moat, the machine will receive power. But first you will have to fill the moat from the supply in the Garden Tower." This was a structure located in an external part of the fortress complex, linked to the Mechanical Tower by an aqueduct.

"Activate both towers and the door will open." He knew what to do but was too well aware that there would be obstacles and danger and determined opponents at every step. "You'll need this," said the woman.

She presented her sword with its long twisted blade. He reached for the handle. They held it between them for a moment. "It's more than just a weapon. It also serves to activate a system of bridges which will grant you access to the other towers." She sighed. "It won't make a difference, though." "What do you mean?" "Succeed or fail the outcome is the same. You will not stop the Sands from being created. What is written in the timeline cannot be changed." The Prince was undaunted. "Thanks for the advice." She watched him go, her green eyes impassive.

The Prince turned to attend his mission. He needed to unseal that heavy door and to do that he must gain access to each tower in turn, whatever hazards he faced. As he left the Hourglass Chamber he noticed upon the floor beneath his feet a curious design. Nine interlocking circles formed a ring around a larger circle, each bearing a slightly differing symbol. Two were aglow with brilliant white light.

He could not determine the cause. He lent his weight to the mechanical lever on the wall by the door, which reopened it, grinding slowly to a close behind him as he rolled underneath. He made his way back along the corridor of traps, ably negotiating the ingenious array of lethal devices. A fine test of his ability to be sure, though for one less agile than he, quite impossible.

Truth be told he was becoming nervous from the time that would be consumed thanks to this little detour...He had to hurry!

--

There we go MAJOR update for you all to enjoy!!

Prince: I see..two towers i see coming in but i did not think to activate them so now my time is short. Let me make haste!

You'll reach the sands i guarentee it... NOT LOL! XD who knows what the hell will happen, just go through will ya? it's your story...

Prince: Fine, i'll be on my way!

READ AND REVIEW!!


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